


Vapour Trails

by commoncomitatus



Category: The New Legends of Monkey (TV)
Genre: Brain Damage, Childhood Trauma, F/F, Gen, Healing, Memories, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-11-26 06:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 318,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18176987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: Post-S1. Following the victory at Jade Mountain, Sandy starts to experience strange blackouts and memory lapses.  With the help of some unlikely allies, our heroes set out to mend the problem at its source... but what they uncover may have far-reaching consequences for all of them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a vague attempt to answer a few questions I had after 1x05, and spiralled into... well, _this_. It’s long, it’s angsty, it gets pretty dark in places, and it may or may not hold together under canonical scrutiny.
> 
> Warnings: At its heart, this is a fic about 1) brain damage and 2) childhood trauma, so if either of those things affect you on a thematic level, this is definitely not a fic you should invest in.
> 
> In more detail:  
> 1) Brain damage, as a side-effect of psychic trauma; madness in general, both as a product of the above and a condition in its own right. Both explored in great detail through a fantasy setting, with all its medical and moral restrictions. Occasional (vague) suicidal thoughts. Loss of control, and the inability to trust one’s own mind and behaviour.  
> 2) Childhood trauma, both circumstantial and through active abuse. Including, but not limited to: mistreatment, abandonment, dehumanisation, threats of physical violence (not generally acted on), and psychic/telepathic assault. Hopefully not too graphic and handled with sensitivity, but it does make up a fairly substantial part of the story.  
> 3) Other Warnings: violence (against adult characters only), including an instance of mutilation (fade-to-black, not described) and discussion thereof. Sickness, both physical and mental. Deception, potentially seen as gaslighting. Non-consensual physical and psychic contact, invasion of personal space, &c. Humanisation of and compassion towards villainous characters, some redeemable and some not.
> 
> A Note on Angst: As the warnings likely suggest, there is a LOT of angst in this fic, for pretty much everyone involved. That said, I’m a firm believer in ending my work on a positive / hopeful note, no matter how dark things get overall, and I’d like to think I stay true to that here.
> 
> I think that covers most of it without too many spoilers. Feel free to hit me up for more details if needed.

***

It begins in a tavern.

It begins after the end. After they defeat Davari and his army of demons and thralls, after the Shaman cuts his losses and vanishes in a puff of smoke, after the Jade Mountain and its people are freed at last from their oppression. After the Monkey King and his merry band of misfits, gods, and would-be monks take their first serious step towards saving the world.

It begins, as so many tragedies do, with boundless joy.

It begins with Pigsy laughing, a pitcher of ale in each hand and another, empty, in front of him. It begins with Tripitaka red-faced and scowling, embarrassed because Pigsy keeps insisting that he— _she_ is too young to partake along with the rest of them (“unless you’ve been lying about your age too, you sneaky little fake-monk!”). It begins with Monkey rolling his eyes at them both, and pretending he’s not enjoying himself just as much as they are.

It begins with Sandy watching all of this, and watching the room spin.

And spin. And _spin_.

She doesn’t drink very often. She—

Actually, she doesn’t really drink ever.

Before tonight, it only happened once: the night before they faced the traps and the fire wasps and learned that the first scroll was missing, the night Monkey made a bad speech and Tripitaka made a bad decision.

That night was supposed to be a celebration too, though Sandy still has no idea what they were supposed to be celebrating. Monkey’s handsomeness, quite possibly, or Pigsy’s boots, or—

Trying to remember makes her head hurt, so she stops.

She drank rather a lot that night. This, she remembers with perfect clarity. Not like this, not enough to make the room spin and lurch around her like it’s doing right now, but enough that she found herself less afraid than usual of a room full of strange people. Enough that she was almost, _almost_ able to pretend she was one of them.

A person, that is. Not strange. Strange isn’t something she’s ever had to pretend to be.

It was a good amount, she recalls, and a mostly-pleasant feeling. But she’s had much more than that tonight, and it’s not nearly so pleasant now as it was then. Now, far away from those strangers and surrounded by new ones, she’s come out on the other side of pretending, to the place where she remembers why she was so afraid of people in the first place, where she starts to feel it rise up in her all over again.

Not completely, not like it was before she joined the quest, but enough.

Enough that her heart is quaking and hiding behind her ribs, enough that her breath keeps stalling in her throat, enough that she finds herself squinting through the vertigo, the spinning and the swaying, the smoke and the noise and the chaos, trying to figure out which one of these drunken, scary strangers will be the first to look up from their cups and try to break her bones.

It’s an old, old feeling, as familiar as her skin.

And it’s also entirely new.

It’s been a long time since she was afraid of people like this. Not since the start of the quest, those nightmarish early days when everything was new and sharp and cruel. Not since the day Tripitaka took her aside, gentle and private, and explained that she didn’t have to feel that way any more.

Never again, he— _she_ said. He— _she_ wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her. He— _she_ would make sure everyone who saw her knew what she was: a god, a good god, a hero. Nothing like the monster they saw in her pale face and pale eyes.

It was a sweet thing to say. Untrue, of course — experience has taught her again and again that no-one, not even a monk, can silence that kind of hatred with words — but sweet just the same.

Still, as hollow as they were, Sandy took those words to heart. Wrapped them tightly around herself, wore them like a second cloak, a stronger one, a cloak without holes. She let Tripitaka’s name stand in front of her like a warding spell, let Monkey’s reputation shield her from their eyes and their words, from the way they would stare, slack-jawed and nervous, at the pale, demon-like figure lurking in the shadows behind them.

She held the words close and pretended they were true, pretended she really was like them. Normal, like Tripitaka. Good and strong, like Monkey. She pretended for so long that she almost believed it was true.

Sometimes, anyway.

On the good days.

Not so many of those lately, though.

None, really. Not since—

Since—

 _No_.

That’s the drink talking. Pigsy warned her about that.

She closes her eyes. Breathes, and tries to thinks of the Jade Mountain instead.

 _Victory_ , they called it, and she remembers and feels dizzy.

She remembers the balcony, the highest point of the palace, remembers the endless abyss below, the long, long drop and so much _nothing_ below. Remembers how she felt looking down, dizzy like this but a million times worse. Remembers how she felt watching as Tripitaka fell to her death, then as Monkey threw himself down after her... then, at last, as they both rose again.

 _Victory_.

Somehow, it doesn’t feel as victorious as she imagined it would.

But perhaps that’s the drink talking as well.

She squints into the cup in her hand, empty now, and feels ill.

No. Not ill. At least, not exactly. She feels—

“Sandy!”

Tripitaka, bright-eyed and beaming, flops down into the seat next to her. A glance at her face, flushed and just a little blurry at the edges, suggests she’s talked Pigsy into letting her partake.

Good for her, Sandy thinks, and the words taste strangely bitter.

Watching her move, the room seems to sway even more, a discordant sort of rhythm that jars and jolts against the music. Sandy’s vision lurches as she tries to focus, tries to stay still. She’s always felt an affinity with the ocean, but right now she feels dreadfully seasick.

“Pigsy let you have some?” she asks.

And blinks. Her voice sounds distorted, and very peculiar.

Tripitaka doesn’t seem to notice. She grins, eyes sparkling with mischief, and gazes at Sandy like she’s more than just a seasick mess of a water god, like she _matters_.

She’s infinitely more beautiful, Sandy thinks hazily, now that she’s not a boy.

“Only a little,” she’s saying, grudging but cheerful. “But it’s better than nothing, right? I mean, I _am_ the one who saved the world.”

“I’d like to think we all had a hand in that.”

Tripitaka waves hers, dismissive; Sandy has to duck or be punched in the face.

“Sure, I guess. But I had the _biggest_ hand.”

Squinting down at her, loud and emphatic and giddy, Sandy has a sneaking suspicion she’s had rather more than ‘only a little’.

“Of course you did,” she deadpans.

Tripitaka does not dignify that with a reply. Her expression softens ever so slightly, though, and she peers at Sandy like she’s a strange creature, something to be studied and put on a shelf.

“Are you having a good time?”

It’s thoughtful of her to ask, and she’s just about tipsy enough to let the subtext bleed through into the words: _I know you don’t like crowded places, I know you don’t like people, I know you don’t like anything normal_.

That much, at least, hasn’t changed between them, and it brings a small measure of comfort. Only a little, though, and Sandy doesn’t really know how to answer with honesty and not make her upset.

People like Tripitaka — the kind of people Sandy can only pretend to be when she’s the perfect amount of intoxicated — see the world a certain way; they make certain assumptions, and they don’t like being faced with any kind of truth that might challenge it.

If Sandy learned anything from the North Water, it is that. She is not like Tripitaka; she is not like anyone she’s ever met, and her truths are much safer locked up inside herself.

“I think Pigsy may have overestimated my tolerance,” she says at last, because it is _a_ truth, if not the one Tripitaka is looking for. “I don’t know if my thoughts should be so... wayward.”

Tripitaka grins again, a little lopsided. “Sandy, your thoughts are always wayward.”

Sandy frowns. “Are they?”

Tripitaka’s smile seems to flicker a bit, or maybe that’s just Sandy’s vision. She’s had rather a lot to drink and it’s so hard to know for sure why anything is happening to her.

“Uh, yeah,” Tripitaka says, a little uneasily now. “Yeah, they are.”

“Oh.”

It’s definitely not just her vision. Tripitaka is still mostly smiling, but she looks sort of like she’s trying to frown at the same time, like her face can’t really figure out how to process both things at once. She looks sort of anxious, and her voice gets a bit higher when she asks, “How much have you had, anyway?”

The question, simple as it is, makes Sandy’s whole body hurt. The wheels inside her head — rusted even at the best of times — groan under the strain.

“Not sure,” she admits. “Whatever Pigsy gave me, I suppose.”

Tripitaka’s face falls. “Oh boy.”

Sandy closes her eyes, struggles to block out the whirling of the room, the vertigo settling dangerously in the pit of her stomach. It makes it worse, though, not having anything to focus on, and so she opens her eyes again with a queasy groan.

“This...” She swallows, reorients herself. “This may not have been a good idea.”

Tripitaka rests a hand on her arm. Small and warm and so delicate, it makes Sandy’s heart feel that way too, warm and small and so—

“Sandy?”

Her voice, much like her touch, is a gentle, soothing thing. It’s the only sound in this too-loud, too-busy, too- _everything_ tavern that doesn’t grate against Sandy’s nerves. She feels so raw, so nauseous with so much of this stuff inside of her, so exposed and vulnerable in this place where there is nothing but sound and light and motion, but with Tripitaka touching her arm and speaking to her, she feels like maybe she stands a chance of breathing through it.

“Mm.” It sounds wrong. She’s not sure what she wanted to say, but she doubts it’s that. She shakes her head a little, and tries again. “I’m sorry. Did you want something from me?”

Tripitaka frowns, like she’s starting to wonder that herself. Watching her, Sandy’s stomach gets seasick all over again.

“I thought...” She takes a slow, unsteady breath. “I thought we should talk.”

Sandy’s head feels light, strange. “Thought we were talking.”

“We are. But I mean...” And now she looks uncomfortable, a little frustrated, and Sandy wants to apologise but she doesn’t know what for. “I mean, we should talk, specifically, about... you know. _That_.”

Ah, yes. _That_. The North Water, and everything that happened there. Tripitaka, her eyes all big and sad, so utterly convinced that lying, scheming, terrible woman was her mother. Oblivious, wilful, angrily refusing to see the truth, and Sandy—

Her stomach turns. Her heart stalls. She tries and tries, but she can’t seem to swallow down the bitterness in her throat.

“ _That_ ,” she echoes flatly. “You mean the way you abandoned us?”

Only she doesn’t mean ‘us’ at all.

Tripitaka winces. “Sandy...”

“ _Tripitaka_.” She’s not the only one who can use names as weapons, Sandy thinks fiercely. “You may not have noticed, but I am somewhat unsober.”

“I, uh... I did notice that, actually.” Her face gets a little redder. “I thought it would make this easier.”

At least she’s honest. Sandy blinks at her through the lurching of the room and her stomach, and wonders: “Easier for which one of us?”

“For...” She sighs again, and the sound is suddenly heavy. Like the room, bearing down on Sandy’s head, trying to make it heavy again too. “I don’t know.”

Sandy thinks about that. Tries to, anyway; it makes her head hurt rather a lot.

“You made your choice,” she says at last. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

It’s not the best choice of words. She doesn’t especially care if they _need_ to talk about it, she just doesn’t _want_ to. Talking is difficult, even when she’s sober; what chance does she have when even just raising her head uses up all her resources?

Tripitaka frowns at her, like she can somehow hear all of that, and says, “I think we do.”

Sandy tries to shake her head, but that’s too difficult as well. Everything is difficult and everything is unpleasant and uncomfortable. Everything makes her head pound and her stomach feel sick and sour, and it’s too much, it’s too _difficult_. She doesn’t want to talk about anything, and this least of all; she just wants it all to stop so she can go to bed and sleep for five hundred years like Monkey did.

Not that it would help, she realises, even if she did. Now that Tripitaka isn’t a monk she doesn’t have a room to herself any more, and because she isn’t a boy either she doesn’t get to share with the other boys. She still looks the same, still acts the same and does all the same things, still wears the same monastic robes, only she and Sandy have to share a room now because of what she wears underneath them. It doesn’t really seem fair.

No escaping the talking, then. Even in her sleep, Tripitaka talks endlessly.

So, grudging and unhappy, Sandy takes a breath and braces for the misery.

“If it counts for anything,” she says carefully, feeling her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth, “I’m sorry I was right.”

“So am I.” Tripitaka’s hand, still on her arm, is suddenly very heavy. Sandy feels pinned by it. “I should have listened to you. Instead, I assumed...”

“You assumed I was jealous.” She tries to speak with distance, carelessness, with the blessing of time and hindsight, their recent victory working as a barrier between her heart and the bitter memory. It doesn’t work, though; as hard as she tries, the hurt is as raw and present now as it was then. More, with the sharpness of too much ale sloshing in her stomach. “You assumed I was trying to be spiteful. Trying to be cruel.”

“I...” Finally, blessedly, Tripitaka takes her hand back. Sandy breathes, feeling a little of the pressure lifting from her chest. “No. I assumed you were _upset_. I assumed you didn’t want to let me go. You’ve always been so attached to my... to the name ‘Tripitaka’. I thought you were just struggling with the idea of carrying on the quest without me. I didn’t...” She looks away, biting her lip. “I didn’t know it was so personal.”

The word ripples, a muted tremor like small earthquakes under the sea. The liquor in Sandy’s stomach burns, not warmth but heat, the kind that heralds destruction.

“I don’t know that I’d call it ‘personal’,” she murmurs, even though they both know it was. “But I wasn’t trying to jeopardise your happiness. If nothing else, I’d want you to understand that.”

“I do understand that.” And then her hand is back on her arm, like it never left, and Sandy’s skin is suddenly very sensitive. Even through her clothes, Tripitaka’s touch feels like a kind of flame, igniting the liquor inside her, igniting all of her, a hearth and a horror all at once. “I know you’d never do anything to hurt me on purpose. I know you were just looking out for me, trying to protect me. And you were right. The whole time, you were right, and I...”

Her voice cracks, and she stops. Sandy wishes she could feel some sympathy, but every nerve in her body wants to burn and there is no room left for anything else.

“Tripitaka,” she says, and thinks, _please go away, please leave me alone, please_.

“I should have listened to you,” Tripitaka says again, in a devastated whisper.

Sandy doesn’t respond to that. At least, not out loud. She doesn’t trust herself to say what she truly thinks — _yes, yes you should have_ — and not sound petty or pathetic. Whatever happened between them at the North Water, whatever bridges might yet need mending, still there is a part of her that can’t bear to be a disappointment. Can’t bear the ache in her chest when Tripitaka looks up at her. Can’t bear — even now, after all this time — the burden of feeling so much, so deeply for another living soul.

“Can we stop talking about it now?” she asks, pleading quietly.

Tripitaka bites her lip, shy and sort of nervous. She is so much a girl in the moment, her edges softened under the dim tavern lights, that Sandy wonders how they ever believed she wasn’t.

“Sandy,” she breathes.

Again, the name becomes a weapon on her tongue. Again, Sandy recoils and resists with everything she has.

“Why do you keep saying that?” She’s probably pouting, but she finds she doesn’t much care. “I know my name. Some days it’s the only thing I do know. I don’t need you to remind me who I am.”

Her voice cracks a bit as she says it, though, and so does her point.

Tripitaka brushes the underside of Sandy’s sleeve with her fingertips, then moves up with devastating tenderness to cover her hand. She’s got a strange look on her face, blurring and distorting under the hazy lights, and Sandy feels suddenly and inexplicably frightened. She wants to pull away, to hide from her like she’s always hidden from other people, wants to protect herself, for the first time, from _Tripitaka_ , like she’s just another human baying for her blood, like she’s not—

Like _they’re_ not—

It’s new. It’s new and it’s awful and she hates it. Usually Tripitaka is like an oasis or a harbour, the one quiet place in a world full of noise and chaos and pain; Sandy has come to think of her as an anchor, a good one, not the kind that betrays... at least not usually. She was the one thing Sandy could always hold on to, no matter how rough things got, to keep her afloat and tether her to herself.

She took for granted it would always be that way, but suddenly it’s not, suddenly it’s all changed, it’s all different, it’s all _wrong_ , and that— 

That is frightening. And disorienting. And so, so upsetting.

She’s been feeling like this since the North Water, discordant and out of joint, severed from the place she once saw as a sanctuary, the person she would follow without hesitation to the ends of the world. It’s not gone, not completely, but it’s transformed into something she doesn’t recognise, and she doesn’t know how to put it back to the way it was. She doesn’t know where to look any more, in moments like this, to find something safe.

Tripitaka strokes her knuckles, thumb moving back and forth over the frayed edge of her sleeve, the cracked skin, and the fire in Sandy’s nerves spreads and spreads and _spreads_ , until she can’t think or move or breathe.

“You broke yourself open for me,” Tripitaka says in a choked, reverent whisper. “You poured your whole life out onto the ground, and then you walked away before I could tell you...”

She stops, flushing hot. As one, Sandy’s throat and stomach clench.

“I said what I needed to say,” she rasps. “And it wasn’t my whole life.”

Tripitaka’s breath seems to hitch, and the air sort of bends between them, catching the rhythm of her heartbeat. It makes the world seem upside-down, and though she knows it’s not possible Sandy is certain she feels the floor start to shake. She feels like she’s suddenly airborne, like Monkey’s cloud has swooped in to steal the chair and the ground out from under her. The sensation is unpleasant, lifting and falling and _falling_ , like being adrift in rough seas, the violence of the waves tossing and drenching her, and—

And Tripitaka says her name again, “ _Sandy_ ,” and it sounds like—

Like—

Like something else, something not a weapon. And the softness of her voice and the look on her face is strange and different all of a sudden, and Sandy blinks a couple of times, struggles in vain to focus her eyes and her thoughts, struggles in vain to make sense of what her mind and her dulled, drunken senses are trying to tell her.

It’s difficult. Confusing. Sandy knows so little about social interaction, can barely communicate with people even when she’s sober, much less like this. But she has watched people, studied people, and she knows — at least, she thinks she knows — what it means when a person looks at another person the way Tripitaka is looking at her.

Sandy swallows. Tries to find purchase but there’s nothing there.

“Um...” she stammers, and her voice rises and starts to quaver. “I...”

Tripitaka stares at her. Sort of sad, sort of strained, sort of—

“Sandy,” she says, quiet and very careful. “I’m trying to apologise.”

And apparently Sandy doesn’t know anything about people at all. Must be the ale, she supposes, tricking her into believing she did.

She takes a deep, steadying breath, and tries to reset her heartbeat.

“For which part?” she asks hoarsely. “Abandoning me? Not listening to me? Telling me I didn’t understand when I—”

She stops. Has to stop, because her stomach gives a sharp, violent kick, and the shock of pain vibrates all the way through her whole body, cutting off the words and her train of thought.

It settles somewhere behind her eyes, a strange sort of headache that isn’t really a headache at all, and she has to blink a lot to keep her vision from blacking out. It happens sometimes when she tries to remember things she shouldn’t, when her thoughts try to reach beyond what’s there inside her mind. Sometimes her head aches for days and days.

Tripitaka flattens her palm over Sandy’s hand, fingertips pressing gently, like she thinks the contact will soothe her, oblivious to the fact that it has the opposite effect, that she’s actually making it worse.

“I had no idea,” she says, “what you’d been through.”

And that—

 _That_ —

That sends another, different shudder through Sandy’s body, panic and horror and the shadow of something she can’t touch. The sharpness of it makes the room twist and contort, makes the spinning even worse, and her stomach turns over and over like a fish choking on air.

She wants to say something. Anything. Everything. Wants to give a voice to the mess inside her, the clamour and the chaos and all the dreadful things she’s been feeling since that night, since she looked Tripitaka in the eye and felt her past scratching at the walls inside her head, since she opened her mouth and started to talk and talk, a lifetime of pain spilling out of her, endless and awful, until she couldn’t remember how to stop.

She wants to do that again — talk and talk and _talk_ , until there’s nothing left to say or think or feel — but at the same time she wants to do the opposite: to duck and cower and hide herself away. And again, it is new and unwelcome, wanting to hide not from the world and its noise and its chaos but from _Tripitaka_ , from her eyes and her touches and her words, from all her useless, meaningless apologies, from the way she makes Sandy’s heartbeat change, the way she makes everything get so still, and she wants—

And she wants to hide from herself too, a little bit. Wants to hide from the voices in her head, the little and not-so-little ones, the rusted-blade sharpness of broken memories, the few small fleeting things she remembers and the hundreds of thousands of things she doesn’t. There are so many holes inside of her, so many hidden things she can’t reach, and trying to catch hold of them makes every part of her feel like it’s splitting, makes her feel lost and broken, untethered and unanchored and—

“Oi!”

The shout makes her flinch. Her old, long-buried instincts kick in, not to fight but to flee; she wants to duck under the table, wants to curl up and protect herself, wants to cower and hide and—

And then she looks up and sees it’s just Pigsy. And the panic drains from her bones, replaced by weakness and humiliation.

He weaves his way over to them with a big grin on his face. Surprisingly graceful, Sandy thinks, for someone so big and so drunk, he seems to sway in rhythm with the room. He looks happy, warm and bright-eyed and entirely at peace with the world and his place in it, so much that it’s impossible not to feel some of it touching her too. Not a lot, certainly not enough to chase away the discomfort, but a little.

It’s a moment or two before Tripitaka, still wrapped up in her own thoughts, notices him. Her face turns even redder when she does, and she snatches her hand back with astonishing speed. Like Sandy’s searing nerves have somehow set hers on fire too, like touching her is something shameful and wrong, something to be hidden or denied.

Sandy is very, very used to that. The sharp sting of rejection is as familiar as the need to hide. She swallows them both down and looks at her hands, her sleeves pulled up over her knuckles; she can still feel it, the phantom pressure of Tripitaka’s touches, the places where her fingers drummed their rhythm. Looking down, she feels raw and ragged and horribly exposed.

“Pigsy,” she says, trying unsuccessfully to tuck the feeling away. Her voice rises and drops sharply, like a storm at sea; she suspects she’s slurring. “Are you enjoying the celebration?”

“I was about to ask you two the same question.” Ale sloshes over the sides of his pitchers as he dumps them on the table, and Sandy has to scoot back to avoid getting splashed. “This is supposed to be a _party_. You’re supposed be celebrating, not gossiping in the corner like a couple of—”

Wisely, he doesn’t finish.

Tripitaka ignores the aborted slight. Always one to turn a situation to her advantage, she instead uses the awkwardness to reach for a pitcher. “Is that for me?”

Pigsy snorts a laugh. “You think you can handle it?”

Tripitaka laughs too, high and floating and so beautiful it hurts, and she says, “Of _course_ ,” with the cocksure confidence of someone who already knows she’s going to get what she wants. And she looks down at the pitchers and she looks up at Pigsy and she looks all around the room, and she looks at everything there is to look at, everything in tiny, minute detail, only she doesn’t look at Sandy at all.

Sandy looks down again too, blinking blearily at her knuckles. Only halfway covered by her sleeves, the pale skin seems to shift and flicker, moving even though she’s sure she’s keeping her hands utterly still. She wonders if it’s the effect of the ale on her vision or of Tripitaka’s lingering touch on her heart, or if maybe she’s just not holding as still as she thinks she is. She can’t tell, and she’s not sure she has the strength to guess.

She breathes in, makes a concentrated effort to steady herself, wills her body into absolute stillness.

Then Pigsy elbows her in the ribs and the whole tavern pitches, taking her with it.

“What about you?” he asks, like the world isn’t a maelstrom. He’s got a big fist wrapped around one of the pitchers, and he’s gripping her arm with the other, like he knows she’ll topple over if he doesn’t. “Can you handle some more?”

Sandy shakes her head, feeling dizzy and sick. She tries to think. Tries to—

Her mind hums, a strange static-like buzz that swells and surges and takes up all the space inside her head. It won’t let her think, won’t let her speak, and when she tries to shake it off it only gets worse. Her vision blurs and then grows dim, and all of a sudden the world is silent and very, very still.

She looks up at Pigsy, expects to find him smiling and cheerful—

And everything gets dark and cold—

And she blinks, and her vision, clears a bit, and Pigsy looks like—

Like—

He’s moving, but very slowly, like it’s a terrible effort, like the air has become half-solid around his body. And he opens his mouth, and she hears his voice but it doesn’t sound right at all. It sounds distorted, disjointed, like he’s speaking from the wrong side of some vast, impossible canyon, or maybe like—

Like it’s not really _him_ at all. Like he’s—

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t—

She doesn’t know _anything_.

And her blood freezes in her veins, and her chest grows tight, a thousand little razor-blades stabbing at her lungs, her throat, all of her. And she looks up at him through tearing, half-blind eyes, and all she knows is that she’s desperately afraid.

Then he says, in a low, echoey sort of voice, “She can’t handle any more.”

And that—

And she—

She blinks, and the world twists and turns and sort of transforms itself all around her. And everything is different, and she thinks she recognises him but she can’t say how, only that he is the biggest and most frightening thing she’s ever seen in her life. His expression is cold and serious and his eyes are dark and empty, and all of a sudden he’s not holding a pitcher of ale but something else entirely, something sharp, something _terrible_ , and Sandy’s whole body seizes up and she is _terrified_ , she is _paralysed_ , she—

And she opens her mouth to scream—

But she can’t.

And she tries to move, tries to breathe—

But she _can’t_.

And the world is so dark, and she—

And she—

And she—

 _Falls_.

*

She opens her eyes, a moment or a minute or a lifetime later, and everything is back to the way it was.

Well. Almost everything.

She’s lying on a cold, hard floor, and Tripitaka is kneeling over her, holding her head in her lap. She’s gone terribly pale, all that red-faced half-drunk lightness completely gone, and she’s gripping Sandy’s hand so tight it hurts.

The others are there too, Pigsy and Monkey. They’re towering above her, looming like great dark clouds, crowding all around her with their big bodies, filling up all the space she needs to breathe. It makes her feel small and scared and very unsafe. She wants to ask them to move, but she’s too afraid, and in any case she can’t seem to find her voice.

There’s a sour taste in her mouth, stuck to her tongue, and a raw, rasping pain in her throat. Her limbs are heavy, her stomach is sickly and seething, and her head—

Her head feels like it’s been struck a terrible blow. Or maybe twenty.

She moans. It’s weak, but it’s the only sound she can make.

“Sandy!” Tripitaka leans over her, eyes widening. “Sandy, can you hear me?”

Sandy squints up at her, upside-down and swaying dangerously. She’s disoriented, queasy; the struggle to focus makes her insides clench. 

“Tripitaka?”

Relief floods her face. It doesn’t make it any easier to look at. “What happened?” she asks in a fearful, worried squeak. “Are you all right? Can you speak? How do you feel?”

Sandy moans again. If this continues, she will be violently sick.

“Too many _questions_.” She squeezes her eyes shut. It doesn’t help very much, but she didn’t really expect it to. “No more, please.”

“Sorry.”

“Mm.”

The silence is a beautiful thing, but of course it doesn’t last. Tripitaka is not impetuous by nature, but her curiosity is a living, breathing creature; it takes hold of her, seemingly without her consent, and all the more so in moments like this, when she is frantic with—

Something. Sandy doesn’t want to wonder too hard about what.

She opens her eyes slowly, carefully. Takes in her surroundings.

They’re still in the tavern — she can hear the clamour of voices behind the walls, loud and raucous and never-ending, the clink of cups and glasses, the dull pulsing rhythm of the bard’s instrument — but separate from all the chaos. A small, dust-covered sort of room, meant for storage.

And privacy, apparently. She’s grateful for that, though not as much as she is for the relative quiet.

Tripitaka squeezes her hand, a rhythm like a heartbeat. Then, because she cannot hold her curiosity at bay for more than a moment, she blurts out in a frenzied, panic-stricken rush: “Sandy, what _happened_ to you?”

If she were feeling a touch more steady, Sandy might point out that that’s another question, that it is definitely not helping, and that Tripitaka might want to give her a great deal of space if she plans on keeping it up. As it is, she can barely muster another groan without wanting to pass out again.

So she takes a breath, as deep as she can manage with rust in her lungs, and tries to answer.

“Don’t know.” She is so dizzy, and speaking is such an effort. “I saw... I _thought_ I saw...”

Too much. Hurts too much to think, and hurts twice as much to try and make thought into sound, into words, into life. So she shakes her head, careful not to make herself ill, and tries to sit up. Shuts her eyes again as she moves, tries to keep her breathing steady, and tries to figure out whether the room is still spinning or whether it’s only the chaos churning inside her head.

“Lesson learned,” Pigsy says from above her. He’s trying very hard to sound like he doesn’t care, but it’s not really working; she’s never heard him sound so haunted. “Should’ve figured you’d be one of those gods who can’t hold their liquor. Ah, well. No harm done, eh?”

Sandy tries to scowl, tries to muster some small measure of indignation, but all that comes out is: “...ngh.”

Doesn’t really get the message across, to be honest.

She drops her head into her hands, massages her temples to try and dull the throbbing ache. It doesn’t work; the pain is strange and unfamiliar, like maybe it’s not really pain at all, like maybe ‘pain’ is the only word her body knows to express it. She feels like there’s something ruptured inside of her, like something in her mind has been scratched up or torn. She can hear her own voice bouncing off the walls in her head, discordant and wrong, and she tries to piece it all together, tries so hard to _touch_ —

But whatever it is, it’s beyond her reach.

“Take it easy.” Tripitaka squeezes her hand. “You scared us.”

“Sorry.” With a concentrated effort, she opens her eyes. The world is still spinning around her, arcing and tossing like a small boat on a big, angry sea. “Pigsy, is there any way to make the room stay still?”

“Only one that I know of,” he chuckles. His smile is as tilted as her equilibrium. “Can’t say you’d enjoy it very much, though.”

Maybe not, but she feels like she’s heading in that direction anyway.

“You’re a god,” Monkey points out, rather unhelpfully. “Just put your head between your knees and ride it out like a normal person.”

She tries to do that. She really, really does. But trying to hold herself still and trying to hold the room still at the same time, all the while trying to keep her insides inside and her head from splitting open...

It’s hard enough, all those things alone, the brutal-but-normal effects of too much ale, if she wasn’t also trying to make sense of whatever just happened to her, of the scrambled noise inside her head, the fast-fading echoes of—

Of _what_?

She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t _remember_.

Tripitaka grips her shoulder, fingers digging in, and the little bite of pain — real pain, tangible and solid and normal — brings Sandy back to herself, just a little. She shivers, feeling small and frightened, and Tripitaka stands and looks down at her, shaky but warm, and her smile is more brilliant than it ever was when she was a boy or a monk.

“Come on,” she says, holding out a hand. “Let’s get some fresh air.”

Sandy looks up at her, feeling a strange sort of disconnect from the face, the person she sees. She’s not flushed any more, no longer intoxicated or glowing, but she is still beautiful; Sandy tries to block that out, to think instead of the way she felt at the North Water, the betrayal like a blow to her most sensitive parts, the way she felt as she walked away, wounded and lost and ripped open in all the places she had worked so very hard to forget.

Hard to hold on to those feelings, though, when Tripitaka is the only thing in the swaying, lurching, spinning room that carries any measure of stillness. It is brutally difficult to feel the things she knows she should, but it is entirely too easy to feel the things she shouldn’t, to climb to her feet and let her slowing heartbeat hold her steady, to let Tripitaka’s tight, worried smile anchor her and keep her feet beneath her.

“Fresh air,” she echoes. Tasting it, testing it. “Yes, please.”

*

Outside, the air is fresh indeed.

Cool and heavy with fallen rain, it is wonderful.

Sandy leans against the wall of the tavern, eyes half-closed, breathing in the taste of mist, the rain that has already fallen and the rain threatening to start falling again. Water in her lungs, water in her head, water on her tongue and her skin, water all around her, shrouding and shielding and sheltering. The air is chilly and damp, and it doesn’t reek of drink or people and it doesn’t shake with sound; it is clear and crisp and the sky is dark with clouds and stars, and the world isn’t spinning any less out here but _oh_ , at least she can _breathe_.

Tripitaka watches her closely, unusually quiet. There’s a little space between them, enough that Sandy feels mostly safe, enough that she can make out three different points of escape, should she need them.

She won’t. She knows this by now. But old habits die very hard.

Perhaps Tripitaka understands this, at long last, because she keeps her measured distance, waiting patiently, counting out breaths and heartbeats and thoughts, silent and studious and sympathetic.

Sandy wonders if things would have turned out differently at the North Water if she’d been more like this back then. She’d like to think so, but the rational part of her doubts it. Sometimes things need to happen, even if they cause terrible grief; sometimes that’s the only way for people to learn. And yes, it did, it hurt terribly, but they both learned a lot that night.

Finally, when the quiet has stretched out to its natural conclusion, Tripitaka stretches and says, “So...”

Not a question, blessedly. It’s more like an invitation, a gentle push to explain or to talk about it. Pointless, though; Sandy doesn’t know what happened any better than Tripitaka does, and she has nothing to say. Her thoughts are stuck, buried in the debris of her mind, and she can’t seem to dig them out no matter how hard she tries.

She wets her lips, catching the unpleasant aftertaste of stale ale and—

“Blood?”

She frowns, confused and disoriented. Tripitaka leans in to pat her arm, then inches back again.

“You bit yourself,” she explains.

“Did I?” She tries to remember, but her head throbs a warning and shuts her down. “I don’t...”

“Okay. That’s okay. Take it easy.”

But it’s not easy. Not at all, not for either of them. Sandy feels strange all over, sick and sort of sore, like she’s recovering from a long illness or a terrible accident, and Tripitaka looks deeply uncomfortable. It’s an effort, Sandy can tell, holding herself still; she’s agitated and restless and her body looks like it desperately wants to move around. Worried, maybe; it’s not an emotion Sandy has much experience with, but there it is.

After a long silence, Tripitaka says, “What do you remember?”

“Very little.” She winces. “My head hurts. I don’t feel well.”

“Okay.” She keeps saying that, the word twitching across her tongue like a nervous tic, but it doesn’t match at all with what Sandy sees in her eyes. “Do you think Pigsy could be right? That it’s just intoxication? You not handling your alcohol very well?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Sandy admits with a sigh. “I’ve never been this intoxicated before.”

“Really?” She seems surprised. Sandy can’t imagine why; she knows well enough what her life was like before. “I mean... _never_?”

“Not that I can remember.”

It’s an important distinction. There are so many things she can’t remember, so many parts of her life that blur and fade when she tries to grasp at them. Her head is filled with holes and knots, some big, some small, all confusing, so many things she can’t reach or understand. Her memory is treacherous, a sea full of whirlpools, and just because she can’t remember doing something doesn’t mean it never happened.

Still, it’s a pretty fair assumption in this case, and Tripitaka takes the words for what they are with a nod and a tremulous smile.

“Okay,” she says again, and the word tangles in Sandy’s head.

“Please stop saying that,” she mumbles.

“Ok—” She flushes. “I mean, sure. Of course. I can do that.”

Close enough.

Sandy slides down the wall, pulls her knees up to her chest and presses her forehead against them. The world is still turning and whirling around her, but at least she doesn’t have to look at it. It’s a meagre comfort, to be sure, but at least it’s better than none.

She feels wretched and awful and thoroughly miserable, and if she were alone she might have taken a moment or two to wallow in that. But then Tripitaka sits down next to her and puts her gentle, steady hands on her, one stroking her hair and the other rubbing her back, all fluid motion and softness, and it’s not quite enough to make the world stop churning but it is achingly, devastatingly close.

“Why don’t you talk me through it,” Tripitaka says in a low voice.

Sandy sighs again.

“Don’t know what to say.” It’s true, and thinking about it only makes her feel worse. She tries to breathe evenly, tries to focus on Tripitaka’s soft small hands, the rhythm of motion against her body, steady, slow, steady, slow. “Pigsy was talking, I think? About whether you should drink some more. And then he asked me if I wanted... if I could _handle_...”

She stops. Something prickles under her skin, a feeling of wrongness and confusion, of something terribly important that she can’t pin down. Tripitaka stills her hands, nodding gentle encouragement.

“Slow,” she says. “Don’t push yourself too hard.”

“Mm.” Breathe. Breathe. “He was talking about the ale. And then suddenly he was... I don’t know. Different. Someone else, maybe. Big, so big, and frightening and _wrong_.” The word ignites, pain sending warning sparks across her skin. “Or maybe that was me. Maybe I wasn’t... I don’t...” She can feel the fractures spreading inside her head, skittering little spiderwebs that rend her through. “Don’t remember.”

“Ok— uh, fine. That’s just fine.”

She sounds shaky but proud. Sandy nods, emboldened a little, and presses on. 

“I was afraid.” Just saying the word brings the feeling back, terror like she’s never known, deeper than bones and blood, deeper than anything. “I definitely remember that. Dreadfully afraid. And I tried... I tried to...”

“You screamed.”

Sandy swallows thickly. She remembers being paralysed, remembers trying, reaching, straining, remembers—

“Tried to,” she whispers hoarsely. “Tried so hard. But I couldn’t, I...”

“No. You _did_.” Her voice is high, a little squeaky, her face pale and upset. She looks like she’s seen a ghost, or maybe something worse. “Sandy, you screamed like you were being tortured.”

“I...” But she still can’t remember. “Did I?”

“Yeah.” It’s softer than a breath. “You did.”

The hand in Sandy’s hair starts to tremble, so she takes it back. The one at her back resumes its motion, slow and steady like before, only this time it feels like she’s trying to comfort them both.

Sandy sits there for a while in silence, lets her breath catch the rhythm of Tripitaka’s hand, and tries to process that. Tries, with everything she has in her, to remember something, _anything_ about what happened. Tries so hard, but it doesn’t help at all. Her head is empty and aching and her stomach is sour and her body is shaking and everything feels so intimidating, so utterly impossible.

“Is that...” She wets her lips again. It stings; the cracks in her mind seem to spread as she tries in vain to remember biting down. “Is it normal? Do normal people... do they usually scream when they’re intoxicated?”

“I don’t know,” Tripitaka admits softly. “I’m pretty new to it too.”

“Delightful. Glad I’m not the only one who has no idea.”

Tripitaka chuckles, then grows very serious. “I don’t think so, though. I mean, not like _that_ , definitely. I’ve never...”

She stops, and her breath seems to stop with her. For a long moment she stays silent, completely still but for her hands, the first brushing its broad strokes across Sandy’s back and the other—

The other, delicate and fragile as a breath, is touching her face. Careful, so careful, cupping her cheek then wiping away the blood on her lip, so tender and so affectionate and so warm. And Sandy wants to lean into the contact, wants to close her eyes and drown in the sweet sensation, only she can’t block out the look on Tripitaka’s face, haunted and harrowed and utterly—

“Tripitaka?”

— _devastated_.

“I’ve never heard a scream like that before,” she whispers, in a voice like shattered glass. “And I’ve watched people die.”

“I’ve done that too,” Sandy says, detached and simple. This, she knows is true; she can’t remember the details very well, only the sensations, the sight and the smell and the sound, but she knows it all the way down to her bones. “Sometimes they scream terribly. Sometimes they scream for days. Sometimes—”

“Enough!” Wide-eyed and looking horrified, Tripitaka holds up a hand. “I get the picture, Sandy.”

Sandy sighs. It is always difficult, communicating with other people on their level, finding the words that are acceptable, avoiding the ones that aren’t. It is much, much harder with ale in her belly and whispers in her head.

“If this is intoxication,” she says sadly, “I don’t think I like it very much.”

The look on Tripitaka’s face is very strange. Like she wants to say something, but doesn’t think it would be a good idea. Sandy knows that sentiment, feels it herself quite often but too many years in isolation have cut her off from the ability to keep her mouth shut; whatever she thinks ends up tripping off her tongue, whether she wants it to or not.

Tripitaka has always been more introspective, only saying what she feels is necessary; whatever she is thinking now clearly does not qualify Sandy watches the thoughts play out across her face, watches her suppress them one by one.

Finally, after a long effortful silence, she says, “I don’t blame you.”

Sandy frowns. She can tell that’s not what Tripitaka wanted to say, but doesn’t know how to ask for the truth. She makes an inquisitive sort of noise — “Mm?” — but it comes out sort of sharp and strange and Tripitaka doesn’t look like she understands at all.

“Intoxication,” she elucidates, misinterpreting. “If this is how it makes you feel, I don’t blame you for not liking it.”

“I...” She sighs. Too tired to press her, she lets the issue drop. “Yes.”

Tripitaka leans in a little, studying her face. “Do you feel any better now?”

“No.”

Her stomach confirms with a noisy, miserable gurgle. Her head, somewhat quieter but no less unhappy, silently threatens to shatter into a thousand pieces.

Tripitaka rubs her back again, gentler now. “We can stay out here for a while, if you want.”

“Mm.” Fresh air, heavy with water. It has to help, she thinks, if only a little bit. “Please.”

So they sit and they sit, until time and the world seem to dissolve all around them. And Tripitaka keeps her hand on her back, keeps it moving in that slow, perfect rhythm, the only one that Sandy can tolerate, and the cool air seems to expand in harmony with her heartbeat, the moisture air making it breathable, turning it into something she can swallow and keep down, something that doesn’t make her body feel like it’s falling apart.

Then, at long last, when she’s measured out a few hundred breaths, Tripitaka cups her face, looks her in the eye, and says, very carefully, “You know I won’t abandon you again, right?”

Sandy’s heart stops.

She has no idea what to do with this information. None at all. She’s fairly sure she’s never heard those words before in her life, never imagined that she would, and she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to respond.

And so, without thinking, she blurts out the first words that leap into her head:

“Even if I vomit on your boots?”

“Even if you...” And then it seems to hit her, what Sandy’s just said, and she jumps up to her feet like she’s been struck by lightning. “Sandy, _no_.”

“Ah.” She lets her head fall back to strike the wall, lets the rough stone ground and tether her. “Good to know where we really stand.”

“ _Sandy_.”

Sandy musters a weak chuckle. “I wasn’t planning on it, Tripitaka. I was just checking.”

The look on Tripitaka’s face when she opens her eyes is priceless.

“No more ale for you,” she huffs. “Ever, _ever_ again.”

Sandy’s stomach, not nearly as much under control as she wants Tripitaka to believe, gurgles its agreement.

Still, she feels a bit better, if only a little bit, for the way Tripitaka rolls her eyes, the way she shakes her head and scuffs her boots in the dirt, for the thousand little things she does to take the weight away from what she said, from ‘abandoned’ and ‘again’ and what it means to be afraid of those things. It is a comfort, looking up and trying to find a smile, so much so that she almost forgets how horrible she feels, that the boot-vomiting thing is actually a very real possibility.

That’s not so terrible, though, she decides hazily, just as long as the abandonment thing is not.

It’s that, the abandonment thing, that she cannot endure. The way she felt, walking away from the only thing she’d ever believed in. The kick to the stomach, to the ribs, to every part of her as she waited, holding her breath, for the moment Tripitaka would call her back, the moment that never came. She knows Tripitaka wants to talk about it, knows they need to talk about it, but she _can’t_.

She can’t lay herself bare again. Can’t pour herself onto the ground again, not knowing what happened the last time she did. She can’t open herself up and _remember_ —

Something cracks inside her head. It hurts, that strange maybe-not-real-pain sort of hurting, and before she can stop herself, her voice gives her away with a pained moan.

Tripitaka’s breath catches. Sandy looks up to find her staring down at her, face twisted like she’s somehow sharing her suffering just by hearing it. She sits back down, her prior urgency entirely forgotten, and leans in to touch her face.

Sandy doesn’t know what she’s trying to do, whether she’s searching for the source of the pain or just offering some comfort, but whatever it is there is a tenderness to the contact that shakes her down to her nerves. Sort of new, sort of not, but so sweet and so warm and so...

So _much_.

“I worry about you,” Tripitaka says, in a voice that matches Sandy’s heart, tremulous and tentative. Her fingertips shake against Sandy’s skin. “About that scrambled head of yours.”

“Not scrambled.” She feels disoriented; Tripitaka is so close, and her chest feels like it’s burning. “Just... hurts a little bit. Sometimes.”

“I know.” Her eyes are burning too, so bright. “I still worry.”

“Don’t know why,” Sandy murmurs, and the truth is a very different kind of pain. “No-one else ever has.”

Tripitaka smiles again, but it’s strained now and full of sorrow, nothing like the way she seemed to light up and glow back in the tavern, all full of drink and triumph. She looked at Sandy like she was beautiful then; now she looks at her like she’s cold and dark, like just being close to her is enough to suck all the warmth out of her bones, the joy out of her heart, the life out of her soul. She looks at her like she’s a damaged, broken thing, but then she touches her like she’s something else entirely, something precious, something that maybe deserves to be fixed.

“I know,” she whispers, soft and achingly sweet. “But I do.”

So simple, the way she says it, but it floods Sandy’s chest with so much emotion she almost can’t bear it. She doesn’t know where it comes from, the sudden wave of feeling and sensation, can’t explain the way it surges and splits her ribs and makes her chest feel ready to burst. Can’t explain it, can’t understand it, can’t endure it. She hasn’t felt this much in years, not for an eternity. Not since—

Not since—

But suddenly, impossibly, she can’t remember that either.

Not that it matters.

Because the thing that does matter — the _feeling_ — is a tide so powerful she can’t control it, can’t even try to hold it back. It bursts out of her like a wail, like a drowning thing breaking to the surface on the brink of death. And she can feel her body starting to shake, great wrenching shudders that tear through her like silent, soundless sobs, only there’s nothing there. No tears, no pain, nothing she can name, but it is so real and so intense and so much like—

 _Memory_.

She knows it is, knows it must be, but whatever it is, she can’t touch it. Can’t find it, the place inside her that knows what’s happening, can’t reach for the moment — years or days or decades ago — where this happened before, can’t make it make sense, can’t understand, can’t make herself _remember_.

And then it’s over, cut off like a door slammed in her face, all of it gone, the feeling and the tremors and the barely-there echo of something long since forgotten. Everything. Gone like it never existed, and her insides are still shuddering but on the outside, all of a sudden, she’s completely and absolutely still.

She sits back, breathless and shaking, and tries to catch hold of herself. 

She feels strange all over, hot and cold at the same time, like she’s just made contact with something that only exists somewhere else, something beyond sense or sanity, beyond understanding. And she still has no idea where it came from, what came over her, why the idea of someone caring could make her feel like the world was crashing down and falling to pieces all around her, but she can still tasted the dregs of it on her tongue, and it is old and sort of stale but so familiar she nearly sobs.

She breathes. Tries. _Breathes_. The ache in her head is back, far worse than before, but at least the feeling is familiar now. At least she can make sense of the few things she does still feel: sick and dizzy and confused.

“Sandy?”

Tripitaka is staring at her, wide-eyed and worried. Sandy blinks, willing her vision to focus, and touches her lip. The sting is still there, but there is no fresh blood. “Did I...?”

“No.” She wets her own lips, as if in sympathy. “Nothing like that this time. You just... you looked like you wanted to cry. Like you were trying to, only you didn’t know how.”

Sandy massages her temples. Her brain throbs, musical, like a rainstorm tapping at the windows inside her head; it hurts, but the rhythm is comforting. “What’s wrong with me?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice is lower than usual, even lower than it was when she was a boy. “Maybe Pigsy’s right. Maybe it really is just the ale playing tricks on your mind. Maybe...”

It’s a lot of ‘maybe’, and each one sounds the same. Doesn’t really matter, Sandy supposes; the look on Tripitaka’s face says she doesn’t believe any of them anyway.

Sandy waits until the last of the feeling has drained away, until there’s nothing left but the world spinning around her, the sourness in her stomach and the blurring of her vision. She tells herself that those things are simple, wills herself to believe everything else will be simple too if she can just focus on them. Easier to think about how dizzy she feels, how nauseous and disoriented and confused. Easier to focus on the way the world seems made to hurt her than to dig around inside her heart and hurt herself even more.

“I hope so,” she mumbles. “I hope it’s just that. I hope...”

Oh, but hoping hurts almost as much as feeling.

Tripitaka squeezes her hand, firm but still so gentle. “Whatever it is,” she says quietly, “I think maybe you should try to sleep it off.”

An easy solution. Go to bed, hope it’ll all be better in the morning. Too easy, burying herself under the after-effects of too much ale. She’s seen Pigsy and Monkey suffer through the morning after a night like this, and she doesn’t much look forward to enduring the same; still, though, if it will help to chase away the undersea earthquakes inside her head, the pain that isn’t pain at all, the sickness that is so much worse than nausea... if it will make her feel terrible in the normal way, maybe it’s worth it.

She looks up at Tripitaka, finds her eyes dark with worry. It makes her feel guilty and ashamed, still so unused to other people caring so much. It makes her uncomfortable, but it always warms her from the inside.

“Do you really think it would help?” she asks. “Sleeping it off?”

“It can’t hurt,” Tripitaka says. “I can stay with you, if you want me to.”

“Would you?”

She doesn’t know where it comes from. Definitely doesn’t mean to sound so hopeful about it, so pathetic and miserable. She thinks she sounds like a child, but she probably sounds worse even than that because Tripitaka’s face sort of crumples when she looks at her, and then she pulls her into a hug so fierce and so tight that every muscle in Sandy’s body starts to seize and shake again.

“Of course,” Tripitaka whispers, the words lost to the crook of Sandy’s neck. “I’ll stay as long as you need.”

And it’s not quite ‘I won’t abandon you again’, but it sort of sounds a little bit similar. Sandy’s insides feel strange and uneasy, and she has to pull away or be swallowed whole by another surge of feeling.

“Mm.” Her voice pitches again. Slurring or breaking, it’s so hard to say. “In that case, perhaps it would be for the best.”

She stands, swallowing a moan as the world lurches and turns upside-down.

And Tripitaka leans in to hold her steady, and she summons a smile that is wan and warm at the same time, and she says, with absolute seriousness, “Do _not_ vomit on my boots.”

*

The room is small, but the bed is big.

This is surely a blessing. Tripitaka may be tiny, even by human standards, but Sandy has watched her sleep many times during the long nights when she stood watch, and she has seen the way she thrashes about in her dreams, as disruptive as ten gods. She has many reasons for that, of course — nightmares and memories, all sorts of things, good and bad phantoms bleeding out through the cracks between dream and body — but the important part, at least so far as Sandy is concerned for tonight, is that she won’t be kicked in the head when it happens.

Well. Not more than once or twice.

Her head has suffered quite enough for one day.

Once they’re inside the little room, Tripitaka helps her, as best she can, with the difficult parts. Getting her boots off, getting out of her clothes, getting to the bed without falling over. The parts that should come easily, that maybe would come easily if the floor would stop tilting under her feet, if the walls would stop trying to crowd her, if the world would stop _lurching_.

Tripitaka is patient, though, far more than she should be. Warm hands, warm smile, comfortable, like this is normal, like they do it every night. She is gentle and thoughtful and moves like they’re the same size, like Sandy wouldn’t tower over her if she wasn’t bent double, and when she looks at her, craning her neck as she guides her onto the bed, it’s like there’s nothing else in the world.

Sandy is not used to being looked at like that. Not used to finding meaning in the way other people look at her. Not used to seeing her feelings reflected in someone else.

She falls onto the bed, sprawled on her back with her limbs splayed in all directions. Hard mattress, soft pillow, ceiling whirling above her like a dervish. The vertigo is a nightmare of a thing when she’s horizontal and she can’t seem to find purchase anywhere. She still wants to vomit, but the unpleasantness is oddly comforting; this much, at least, she can blame on the ale. It is tangible and it is physical and, beyond all else, it is _real_. Next to the pain-but-not-pain inside her head, her broken thoughts, it is a relief beyond words.

The bed ripples underneath her as Tripitaka settles in. “Good?”

“Mm.” Sandy breathes steadily, shallowly. “Think so.”

“Good.”

And she shuffles in as close as she can, her body small and solid and still, and she drapes an arm over Sandy’s middle, a gentle pressure to keep her steady, weighted like an anchor.

Sandy has not had the best of luck with anchors, all things considered. But this—

This feels different.

She feels closer to the ground, tethered, and her body matches Tripitaka’s stillness like it’s catching the rhythm of some old, old song. She feels safer like this, like the world won’t pick her up and carry her away, make her a prisoner to its endless, relentless whirling. She feels like—

“Do you think you can sleep?”

Like maybe she could, at that.

She hasn’t slept since the night she left the North Water, the night she left Tripitaka alone to face the deception and the lies that she refused to see, the night she left her to be taken.

She slept very poorly that night, haunted by nightmares that disappeared on waking, sorrows and sufferings that had no form except the tears drying on her face, shadows stalking through the corners of her mind, things she couldn’t touch or name or explain. She woke in pain but couldn’t remember why, and by the time she’d chased the feelings away — hours of walking, hours and hours without end — she was much too afraid to try and sleep again.

She is still afraid, even now, but she is also utterly exhausted. And very drunk. And her head is fractured and her stomach is sour and her body aches all over like she’s been shivering for days, and she would sooner endure whatever horrors come with sleep than have to suffer any more of _this_. She would sooner dream while she is asleep than dream while she’s awake and call it intoxication.

She squints up at the ceiling for a moment, watching it bend and swerve. She feels terribly unsafe with her eyes open, but then she closes them and the room sort of falls away and dissolves; her body still feels like it’s spinning, like she’s stuck inside some terrible lurching contraption, but she can’t see the walls warp or the ceiling pitch, and she can’t feel anything but the warmth of Tripitaka’s body beside her, the weight of her arm around her waist, the anchor that won’t let her drown.

“Yes,” she murmurs dizzily. “I think I can sleep.”

Tripitaka’s lips curve against her neck, an invisible smile that seems to surround her, shielding and shrouding and safe.

“Good,” she says, and holds her until she does.

*

 


	2. Chapter 2

*

Miraculously, it is morning when she wakes.

Even more miraculously, she’s actually feeling a little bit better.

A _very_ little bit.

Enough, at least, that the pale sunlight doesn’t make her head want to explode. Enough that when she sits up and tries to stretch out her aching limbs, the motion doesn’t launch her stomach into her mouth.

Enough that she can push down the wrongness still lurking inside of her, the feeling of something squirming and writhing in her head, of moments she can’t touch, of her thoughts devouring themselves. Enough that she can close her eyes, let the sun pulse through the old window to warm her face, and let her body imagine it never suffered anything but too much ale.

She runs a shaking hand through her hair, breathes slow and deep and careful, and feels out her wobbly equilibrium.

Hard to do that sitting down, even harder in a bed. The mattress — still a strange, uncomfortable contraption to someone who has spent her life sleeping on cold stone floors — shifts and dips in harmony with her body, giving her the illusion of motion, and who in the world could catch their balance with such a thing beneath them?

She feels—

“Hung over?”

 _Tripitaka_.

She’s already up and dressed, leaning against the door with a peculiar look on her face. Her eyes seem to burn, dazzling brightness that refracts the weak sunlight and throws it back into Sandy’s face. Blinded by the beauty of it, Sandy feels warm and dreadfully vulnerable.

It’s not an easy thing, swallowing down the urge to hide — harder still because the instinct still feels so wrong when it turns itself on Tripitaka — but she manages it. Eyes shut tight to block out the brightness, she breathes carefully and tries to keep her focus on the question.

Headache? Yes. Normal, though. Physical, tangible; when she presses her palms to her temples, she’s certain she can feel her skull throbbing from the inside. It is a very different feeling from the cracked wrongness that struck her so violently last night, the splitting and shattering in her mind as her thoughts and memories tried to destroy each other.

Different sort of nausea, too. Unpleasant, oh yes, but normal. A sour, sticky taste in her mouth, acid and stale alcohol clinging to her tongue. Her insides are churning, but her outsides are not. The room is steady and mostly-still around her, the world quiet and tranquil, and if she keeps her eyes shut and holds her body completely still, she can breathe without effort.

 _Hung over_. 

It feels good to use the name. To feel the pounding in her head, the twisting in her stomach, and let herself believe that’s why it’s there.

“Yes,” she says, very slowly. “Yes, let’s call it that.”

Tripitaka smiles.

Sort of smiles, anyway. The strange expression doesn’t completely leave her face, so it looks more like a grimace, like she’s trying to smile and frown at the same time. It’s not exactly a comfort, but at least she doesn’t look so frightened any more.

“That’s good,” she says. “Maybe it was just the ale after all.”

Her voice sounds strange too, though, subdued and a little strained, like there’s something deeper behind the words, something she’s afraid of saying.

Sandy looks down at herself, stripped down to her underclothes, little more than scraps and the thin bedcovers to preserve her modesty. Not that she has much of that in the first place; she’s never particularly cared how much of her the others saw, least of all the little boy monk who was more uncomfortable with his own body than any of theirs. Feels odd to think twice about it now, to look up and see not a boy monk but a girl, to see someone she feels so differently about, someone she maybe doesn’t trust as much as she once did.

Someone who is staring at her like she is so much more than exposed skin, like there are secrets written on her that she can’t see or read.

Sandy shifts, suddenly uncomfortable in more than just the effect of too much drink. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

And she turns away, just a little too fast.

Sandy’s stomach clenches. “Tripitaka?”

Tripitaka keeps her eyes on the floor, but she’s working her jaw, mouth opening and closing a little, like she wants to say something but doesn’t trust herself to make it sound right. Sandy knows that feeling intimately; she feels it herself, every time she tries to say anything at all.

She’s not used to seeing it on Tripitaka, though. She’s the smartest of all of them, infinitely smarter than Sandy, and much better at speaking too. To see her reduced to stumbling, to wordlessness, to—

“Do you think you can manage some breakfast?”

Sandy blinks. She is no expert at communication, but even she can tell that wasn’t what Tripitaka wanted to say.

“Tripitaka,” she says again, frustrated. “I don’t...”

But then Tripitaka looks up at her again, and that peculiar, inexplicable look on her face has softened into something sad and sort of desperate, something that says this is maybe more about her than about Sandy. Sandy doesn’t understand it, but she would give anything to make that look go away.

And so she sighs, shrugs off her own feelings and sets them aside, just like she always does when someone else’s burn hotter, and tries instead to think about the question.

 _Breakfast_.

She tests the word on her tongue, on her stomach.

It’s not pleasant, the way it makes her feel, but—

“I suppose it would be better than the alternative.”

Not just ‘supposes’. She knows it to be true, from experience with things more unpleasant than alcohol. An empty stomach is never a good thing, no matter how unenticing the thought of filling it up. Much better to have something there than nothing, even if it doesn’t stay for long.

Still, knowing it doesn’t make her relish the idea any more, and she doesn’t muster much enthusiasm.

Tripitaka, looking no more enthused than Sandy feels, simply nods. “We’ll take it easy today,” she promises.

She keeps her distance, though, even when Sandy loses her balance trying to get out of bed. She feels horribly unsteady, like her body has been emptied of all its strength, nothing left to hold itself upright, and though the ground stays solid under her feet she’s so light-headed and dizzy that it makes little difference. Her vision blurs, head pulsing, and without Tripitaka to support her she has to brace against the nearby wall to keep from toppling over.

“I think that would be a good idea,” she mumbles.

Tripitaka frowns, but doesn’t move from where she stands. That’s unexpected, and Sandy has to fight to ignore the sharp teeth of rejection clamping down in her chest.

“Would you like some privacy?” Tripitaka asks in a low voice.

It’s not the question Sandy expects. But then, neither was the last one. She takes a deep breath, tries to think.

It’s nearly as difficult as the breakfast question — _no, but also yes_ — and that confuses her because it shouldn’t be. She is shy about so many things that others don’t give a passing thought, and nothing more than being seen, but Tripitaka has always been her exception. Always the quiet place, the safe place, the place she could be exposed and not feel vulnerable or wrong. She knew that would change after the North Water, just as everything else did, but she didn’t expect to feel as conflicted as she does now, looking at her and seeing all those unvoiced words behind her eyes.

She feels like a severed vein, like a nerve cut open, pain bleeding out in pulses, and she—

And _Tripitaka_ —

Tripitaka, who is inching towards the door like she already knows the answer, or at least like she _hopes_ she knows the answer. Tripitaka, who was so supportive last night, so kind and full of empathy, who suddenly, in the cold light of day, can’t seem to bear the thought of getting close to her. Tripitaka, who asks ‘do you want some privacy?’ like she’s looking for an excuse to run away.

Sandy can’t endure that. She turns her face away, studies the creases in the bedsheets, the creases in her underclothes and on her skin. Everything all creased and crumpled, she thinks sadly, and nothing more than _them_.

“You can leave if you want,” she says.

It sounds like an accusation. Feels like one. And she feels so raw, like she’s back in the North Water staring into the face of her own past and a Tripitaka who doesn’t want to hear about it.

Her ears ring, pressure building like a wave of physical force behind her eyes. The memory lashes at her nerves, her bones, her thoughts, makes her feel hollow and terribly, intangibly unwell. She closes her eyes for a long moment, rests her head against the wall until the noise starts to fade, until the world inside her starts to right itself again. It’s a long,wait, and with nothing to hold onto but the certainty that this is _wrong_ , that it’s not right, that it’s—

“Sandy?”

She doesn’t try and open her eyes. Doesn’t trust herself not to fall apart at what she might see.

“Hung over,” she mumbles, though she knows this is more than that. “Remember?”

“I...” Her sigh carries much further than the word, like she can sense it as well. “All right.”

Slowly, carefully, Sandy opens her eyes. The world is the way it should be, and so are her thoughts; she takes a moment to relish that, to capture and hold close the feeling of being back to whatever passes for normal.

But Tripitaka is still not looking at her. She’s got one hand on the door handle, and she’s staring at it with a focused sort of half-frown, like she’s trying to will the barrier to dissolve, to lay open a path to escape. The sight makes Sandy ache a little inside, makes her feel wretched and small, on the cusp of yet another abandonment.

Stupid, yes. A few minutes alone is not the same as... as _that_. She knows this. But that feeling has been so much a part of her for so long she cannot fathom feeling anything else.

“Tripitaka?”

It comes out shaky, a little scared. Tripitaka recoils a little, but doesn’t look up. “Hm?”

“Did I do something in my sleep?”

“No!” Too fast. Sandy can taste the lie, unpleasant as stale alcohol. “Of course not.”

Sandy swallows. “Tripitaka...”

Something in the way she says it seems to strike home. She deflates a little, letting go of the door handle like she’s surrendering something precious to her, and lifts her head to look Sandy in the eye. Sandy is still too light-headed and bleary-eyed to make sense of all the myriad feelings she sees crossing her face, but the room feels suddenly heavy with strain.

“You had a rough night,” Tripitaka says at last. Quiet, cautious, uneasy. “That’s all.”

Sandy tries to remember, to dig into her hazy vision of the night before and see if it’s true. Her head is filled with static, flickers of something intangible, and everything after Tripitaka helped her out of her boots is a hazy blur. She remembers the bed, big and warm, hard mattress, soft pillow, remembers Tripitaka lying down next to her, remembers a small strong arm thrown across her middle, remembers—

Remembers the void of falling asleep, and then nothing.

“Rough how?” she asks.

Tripitaka studies her for a long moment, saying nothing. She looks troubled, conflicted, like she doesn’t know how best to pursue this. Sandy wants to tell her to just be honest — _always be honest, why is it so hard for humans to just be honest?_ — but her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth, fused by the sour taste of stale alcohol and nausea, and she doesn’t trust herself to speak. Doesn’t exactly trust herself to hear the answer, either, if Tripitaka’s furrowed brow is anything to go by.

Not that she has to, in the end. Tripitaka hovers for just a moment on the knife-edge between truth and deception, then surrenders and topples over the wrong side.

“Just rough,” she says, and maybe it is honest, yes, but it’s certainly not the answer Sandy is looking for. “That’s all. You had a couple of nightmares, got confused a couple of times. Nothing serious.”

The evasion is a tangible thing, hanging heavy like poison in the air between them; it tastes so much worse than stale liquor. Sandy braces herself, and whispers, “Then why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I don’t like to see you suffer.” Her mouth twitches, giving her away. “That’s not so strange, is it?”

Wouldn’t be, no, if Sandy could bring herself to believe it. Hard enough to believe it’s true at all, but to believe even for a deluded moment that it’s the only reason for the look on Tripitaka’s face? She would have to be far more hung over than she is to believe that, and her mind even more scrambled. Tripitaka has never been good at evasion, even when she was a boy, and it’s rather insulting that she assumes Sandy is still so gullible and naive, even now, that she’d blithely believe whatever she tells her.

That naiveté drowned at the North Water, in a moment that had nothing at all to do with what Tripitaka wore under her monk’s robes, a moment that had everything to do with old pain and a young woman who would sooner hurt a friend than admit she might be wrong. Sandy doesn’t know if she’ll ever get it back, the desperate faith she felt before, and she’s not entirely convinced she should want to.

“Suppose not.” She doesn’t expect she sounds any more convincing than Tripitaka does, but she’s too weary and feels far too unwell to care. “You know, I think I would like some privacy after all.”

Tripitaka flinches at that, and the look on her face twists into something a little more recognisable: rejection, hurt, a hint of disappointment. These, Sandy is intimately acquainted with; it’s is nothing she hasn’t been feeling herself for days now, ever since she exposed her childhood pain to try and spare Tripitaka the same, since she turned to leave and waited for Tripitaka to beg her to stay, since the moment she realised it was never going to happen.

That feeling is still strong inside her, will probably be for a long time, but in Tripitaka it seems to last barely a moment. She recoils, then catches herself and seems to remember that she’s the one who was looking for an excuse to leave in the first place. Her hand is still on the door, her eyes everywhere except on Sandy. It hurts to be rejected, yes, but she’s been itching to get out of this room from the moment Sandy woke up.

“Okay.” She says it very quietly, like a kind of surrender, the rejection long gone and the relief barely tempered at all. “I guess I’ll head downstairs, then. Catch up with the others. See what’s available for breakfast. Is there anything you’d like to eat?”

Sandy tries to consider that, but her stomach rebels almost immediately. Even the most appetising thoughts make it turn over, a threat she lacks the strength to meet head-on.

“Whatever is easiest to keep down,” she sighs, feeling drained.

Tripitaka chuckles. “I’ll see what I can find.” She doesn’t look at her — she’s still pointedly and deliberately _not_ looking at her — but there is a familiar warmth in her voice when she adds, “Take all the time you need.”

And then she’s gone, taking most of the air with her.

And Sandy looks down at herself, dishevelled and unkempt and even paler than usual, and she thinks maybe Tripitaka didn’t just mean the time it takes to dress.

*

It’s harder than it should be, getting down the stairs on her own.

The world isn’t spinning any more, true, but she still can’t seem to shake the phantom sensation, the illusion of being in motion, of her body swaying even when she tries to hold it still. She’s mostly sure it should have passed by now, but here she is nonetheless, reeling and roiling and rolling, feeling dreadfully... well, dreadful.

The stairs creak as she wobbles her way down, like they’re just waiting for her to put a foot wrong, waiting for an opportunity to splinter and fall to pieces under her. She can feel the give in the wood, the way it shifts and buckles beneath her weight; it feels like the deck of a boat, unstable and half-rotted by water and wear, and she’s struck for a moment by a wayward memory of salt lashing her skin and wood creaking all around her. It comes out of nowhere, sticks inside her like sour ale, and makes her feel very, very small.

She sees the others before they see her. No surprise, of course: Monkey and Pigsy are always the most visible people in a room and Sandy has built her life on being precisely the opposite.

They’re gathered around a small table, the two of them and Tripitaka, heads together and speaking in low, heated murmurs. From the looks on their faces, Tripitaka and Pigsy are arguing and Monkey is doing everything in his power to ignore them both. It doesn’t take a genius to guess at the subject of conversation; Sandy presses her back to the cracks in the wall, slides into the shadows, and listens.

“—still think you’re wrong,” Tripitaka is saying.

Pigsy rolls his eyes. “Look, I know this stuff.”

“I’m sure you think you do—”

“Uh, _excuse_ me? Decadence is kind of my _raison d’etre_ , remember?” He says it like that’s something to be proud of. To him, perhaps, it still is. “I’ve seen more drunken gods, humans, and demons than you’ve seen sunsets. Believe me: I definitely know what I’m talking about.”

“Maybe. But I know _her_.” Sandy’s blood freezes in her veins; the intensity in Tripitaka’s voice, in her eyes, makes her feel devastated and utterly worthless. “This isn’t normal.”

“Nothing about her is normal,” Monkey chimes in, rather too cheerfully. “Never was. Can’t we just chalk it up to that and get on with our lives?”

Sandy should probably be a little offended by that, but she’s self-aware enough to know that he’s not wrong.

“Pigsy.” Apparently Tripitaka is ignoring Monkey today. Interesting. That never happens. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see what I saw. The way she was, the way she looked at me, the way she...” Her voice hitches; the shattered-glass sound carries, even through the noisy tavern. “She couldn’t—”

“Hallucinations.” Sharp and quick; the word shrieks along her nerves, drills into her throbbing skull. “It’s a thing. With gods, especially. Some of us don’t mix well with stuff that messes with our brains. And hers is...” He clears his throat, trying to be tactful but lacking any real talent for it. “Well. Monkey’s not wrong, eh? She’s pretty messed up by herself, even on a good day. I should’ve kept a closer eye on her, told her to take it easy. Should’ve figured something like this might happen, but it’s done now. Lesson learned, no harm done, and now we know not to do it again.”

“No harm done? Pigsy, she was _terrified_. I’ve never...” She shakes her head, visibly distraught. “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough.”

“Yeah, well, if you ask me, you’re taking it _too_ seriously. She got drunk, had a funny turn, and regretted it in the morning. We’ve all been there.” He snorts a crude-sounding laugh, and even from her safe, shadowy distance Sandy can read the countless fond experiences behind his grin. “Well. Those of us whose voices have broken, anyway.”

Tripitaka _growls_.

It—

Well. It mostly just proves Pigsy’s point about her voice, in truth. But she tries, angry and defensive and upset on Sandy’s behalf, and that’s so much more more than anyone’s ever done for her before. Sandy is not used to people sticking up for her, not used to people caring what happened to her at all. It’s a strange, surreal sort of feeling, and it makes her chest tighten like a vice.

“I’m just worried about her,” Tripitaka says, the growl softening into something a little sweeter.

“Don’t be.” Pigsy is gentler now, too, like even he can’t fully resist that kind of compassion. “It’s cute, but seriously. Don’t be.”

And he leans back, ending the conversation like his word is the only one that matters. Aggravation flashes briefly in Tripitaka’s eyes, but she suppresses it quickly. Still a monk, Sandy muses, even when she’s not.

“I hope you’re right,” she sighs, in the resigned voice of someone who is utterly convinced they know better.

Sandy doesn’t know which of them them she should believe. Pigsy, with all his experience and all his worldliness; he knows more about over-indulgence than anyone she’s ever met, and possibly more about gods too. But Tripitaka knows _her_ , or so she says, and the look on her face this morning whispers in the back of Sandy’s thoughts, an unreachable itch of something dark and dangerous. Tripitaka has a gift for insight and instinct; Pigsy has experience and certainty. Either one of them could be right, for all Sandy knows, but with her head the way it is, she doesn’t much care. She just wants it to stop _aching_.

Slowly, carefully, she steps out of the shadows. Tired of listening to them talk about her, and tired of trying to keep herself upright, she moves to join them, crossing the room with the unsteady stagger of someone who feels like the air is trying to throw punches.

The tension around the table is still palpable when she reaches it. Pigsy is staring moodily into a cup of what she desperately hopes is not more ale, Tripitaka is glowering at nothing in particular, and Monkey—

For once, Monkey is the one who’s actually happy to see her.

“Glad you could join us,” he says with a wry, welcoming smile. “These two idiots won’t stop bickering about you, and it’s a real mood-killer.”

Sandy opens her mouth to remark on that, then closes it very quickly when her vision starts to swim. For the briefest of moments, the tavern around her looks entirely different; the walls are darker, the room is bigger but not so well-lit, the people are not the same, everything is _changed_ —

Then she blinks, and it all disappears.

She looks down at the table, at her friends. Same friends, same faces, same everything. Tripitaka is touching her arm, looking up with wide eyes.

“You don’t look so good,” she says.

Even Monkey looks a little uneasy. “Uh. Yeah. You should probably sit down.”

Sandy does sit down, but she doesn’t say anything to either of them. Everything is quieter this morning, her companions included, but there is still a sort of sharpness to the world that leaves her feeling shaky. She can’t blink away the fuzziness in her vision, the strange shimmering distortion that made things look so different a moment ago. She feels separate from everything around her, disconnected and sort of cut away, and she can’t seem to—

“Here.” Pigsy, shoving a crust of bread into her hands. The interruption is welcome, if rather jarring. “Breakfast.”

The bread is dry and impossibly tough. Even on a good day she’d have trouble getting it down. In her present state—

“This is inedible.”

Pigsy blinks, like she’s just said the sky is blue, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Your point?”

“If it wasn’t,” Monkey points out, “he would’ve eaten it himself.”

Sandy scowls. “If _he_ won’t,” she grumbles, “why do _I_ have to?”

Pigsy opens his mouth, no doubt to point out that anything of a higher quality would be wasted on her rebellious stomach, but Tripitaka cuts him off with a sharp look before he can get a word out.

“Ignore him,” she says to Sandy. “I’ll go ask for something else.”

Sandy wants to thank her, but her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth and her throat is suddenly closed up; she looks down at the bread in her hands, as hard as a stone and just as unappetising, and can’t figure out why the sight of it sets off sparks inside her head, why it makes her feel dizzy and untethered and afraid.

Her vision blurs again. The pounding in her head intensifies, ears ringing, a stabbing sort of audible pain. She feels—

Not good.

She sets the inedible bread down on the table, and hopes her hands aren’t shaking as hard as her insides. Takes her head in her hands, presses her palms against her temples as hard as she can. She wants to believe it’s just the morning, just the light of day and Pigsy’s too-loud voice scraping against her nerves, just her body being a bit too sensitive after too much ale. The world has always been a sharp, bright, noisy place, has always tried to carve her up from the inside, but she hasn’t felt it as viscerally as this in a long, long time. It’s been months since she left the sewers. She thought she was beyond feeling this way.

Apparently not. Apparently she will never be truly past the twisted creature she once was. No matter how many leagues she walks with her new friends, no matter how many lessons she learns, no matter how much she grows and evolves and _becomes_ , still that old primal thing is there, scratching under the surface of her skin, seeking a scar to break through.

Eyes shut, massaging her temples, she tries to breathe. Tries not to move too much or think too much. Tries not to— 

“Head down,” Pigsy says. Even seated, his presence seems to smother her. “Breathe slow. You’ll feel better after you get some food into you.”

Sandy nods, but she doesn’t really think that’s true. It’s not her stomach that feels wrong. Sick, sour, sorry for itself, certainly, but not _wrong_. It’s her head that does, her mind, her thoughts.

He’s so sure, though, so utterly convinced that he knows everything about what she’s feeling. And she learned the hard way, back in the North Water, just how futile it is to try to stop someone from believing something they have decided is true. Whatever is wrong with her, ale or something entirely different, she can tell he will believe no story but his own until there’s no other choice.

Human nature. The nature of gods too, it seems. For all their differences, sometimes they are so alike it’s almost amusing.

Sandy is still feeling wrong when Tripitaka returns to the table. She has the barkeep in tow, a slender, smiling young woman clearly well accustomed to patrons suffering the morning after a heavy night. She’s got a bowl of something hot and thick in one hand, a cup of cold water in the other, and pretty dark eyes that make Sandy feel strangely warm and sort of shivery at the same time. Her breath sticks in her chest, and try as she might she can’t seem to make words.

“Rough one, eh?” the woman says with a cheery smile, and sets the bowl down in front of her. “This’ll set you right.”

Sandy peers suspiciously into the bowl. It’s a thick sort of broth, harmless to the eye, but when she breathes it in the smell of vegetables and spices is so strong, so overwhelming that she almost blacks out. It ignites something inside of her, that smell, and that warm-but-shivery feeling swells and warps into something wholly new. Something different but similar, something powerfully familiar but so, so far away.

She grips the edge of the table, tries in vain to steady herself. Breathes as deeply as she can, struggling in vain to place the feeling, the sensation, the memory of—

Of—

“Sandy?”

Tripitaka, voice sharp. She leans in close, studying her, and her face fills Sandy’s vision completely; it cuts off her concentration, shatters her thoughts, and leaves her trembling.

“Hm?”

Tripitaka frowns. “Are you okay?”

Not an easy question. She doesn’t know. But she doesn’t want Tripitaka to know that, doesn’t want anyone to.

“Of course,” she says. With a considerable effort, she shakes off the discomfort, mustering a smile for the barkeep. “Thank you, Monica.”

And as the words leave her mouth, the air around her goes very, very still.

She looks up, finds the faces of her friends, and—

And they’re staring at her. All of them. _Staring_.

Tripitaka, eyes wide, jaw suddenly tight. Monkey, wearing a strange sort of frown, like he can’t quite decide whether to be confused or amused. Even Pigsy, in his distracted, mostly-thinking-about-food sort of way, is looking at her like she’s said or done something unfathomably stupid. And the barkeep, young and slim, with those big dark eyes and—

No.

No, that’s not right at all.

It’s not—

She’s too young, too slender. Too tall, possibly, as well. Too much of everything, and something in Sandy’s head seems to burst wide open as she tries to make sense of what she’s seeing, what she thinks she’s seeing, what may or may not be there. Her eyes roll back as pain swells behind them, blinding and terrible, and she—

She can’t—

She’s not—

“Sandy?”

“Something’s wrong.” The only thing she knows with any kind of certainty, the only thing in the whole world she knows is true. “Something’s not...”

And she wants to ask for help, but she can’t remember how to shape the word on her tongue.

“You can say that again,” Pigsy is saying. Even he sounds a little concerned now. “You do realise that’s not Monica, yeah? Like, not all tavern owners are the same? I mean, she doesn’t even look like—”

“Pigsy!” Tripitaka, cutting him off with a glare, crouches in front of Sandy. Holds her face in her hands, peers into her eyes like she thinks she’ll find answers there. Sandy tries to hold still, but she’s shaking so violently she’s not sure she can.

“Your pupils are blown,” Tripitaka says, with a quiet sort of urgency.

“I don’t know what that means,” Sandy says, and blinks, and—

And for just a second the world seems to disappear completely—

And she blinks again and it’s back, but everything is different—

And her ears are ringing and her head hurts like nothing she’s ever felt before, and she looks around and—

And she doesn’t recognise anything.

Nothing.

No-one.

 _Nothing_.

There’s a hand on her arm, strong fingers and a soft palm, and she looks down into a face she’s sure she’s seen before, young and open and worried, familiar but strange, and she can’t—

She can’t _remember_ —

She can’t—

And she’s saying her name, this familiar stranger, over and over and over like a sort of prayer, like she fits the robes she’s wearing better than they fit her. Over and over and over, and Sandy knows that it should make sense, knows that _something_ needs to make sense, only nothing does. Everything is so loud and so much and so strange, colours flashing behind and in front of her eyes, and her name sounds so _wrong_ on this stranger’s tongue.

“Sandy!” She tightens her grip, squeezes so hard it hurts. “Sandy, can you hear me? Sandy, do you know who I am? Sandy—”

“No.” She doesn’t recognise her own voice any more than she recognises the face in front of her. It’s too low, too hoarse, too rough; she sounds so old and so broken. “I don’t know you, I don’t know anything, I don’t know, I don’t know...”

She’s shaking. She can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t—

Her head feels like it’s being pulled apart.

She feels sick, she feels—

 _Terrified_.

And it is instinct that launches her up to her feet, instinct that wrenches her away from this person who won’t let go of her arm, instinct that makes her look around, feral and frightened, and see that there is nothing here that she knows, nothing she recognises, nothing at all, and she is scared and lost and completely _alone_ —

And it is instinct, too, that makes her reach inside herself, even as she doesn’t understand how or remember why, instinct that guides her to the place where she is alive, the place that keeps her safe, the place where the blood turns to cool water in her veins, surging and swirling. And it is instinct that shows her what to do, that helps her to reach out and touch that place, to find the power, to reach and touch and hold it until it _spreads_ , until there is nothing else at all, just water, _water_ , until—

Until _she_ becomes that way too, cool and fluid and untouchable, until the world shimmers and dissolves around her, until she shimmers too, until she fades and disappears, vanishes into the one place—

The _only_ place—

And she looks around, and the whole world and everything in it — all of it shimmering like her, like mist — shrinks down to a single thought, a single instinct, the only thing she’s ever managed to hold on to, the only thing that has ever made any sense, the only truth she knows, the one thing she will never, ever forget:

 _Hide_.

The door is a step away, a thought away, a world away. She could be there in a split-second if she could only focus, if she could only block out the world and its people, the chaos and confusion, the nonsense all around her, if she could only will her mind to work. She could be there in a heartbeat, out the door and gone before they could even think of stopping her, if only she could remember how to—

But she can’t.

She tries to move, to part the air around her, to blur and fade and _run_ , so fast they’ll never even see her go. Tries and tries, tries so hard, but her mind is sluggish and stalling; it can’t keep up with her body, and it doesn’t know what to do anyway. She’s done this a thousand times, a hundred thousand, but all of a sudden it’s like never done it before in her life.

They stop her, halfway to the door. Effortless, like she’s moving at half-speed.

A sharp blow to the backs of her knees, and she’s on the floor, all the air knocked out of her lungs. She reels, disoriented, as somewhere above her the girl in ill-fitting robes is shouting again — “don’t _hurt_ her!” — like it’s not too late, like it’s not utterly pointless. She’s already down, winded and dizzy and _trapped_ , and it doesn’t matter that the blow wasn’t meant to hurt her in the first place, only to disable, doesn’t matter at all because she is utterly helpless and that is so much worse than being hurt.

She curls up in a ball, makes herself small, protects her body and her mind, protects every part of herself she can hold, protects herself because she knows no-one else ever will, because she has learned, because she’s alone. And she is ready, when the three of them crowd around her, ready to lash out with her teeth and her fists, with everything she has—

But she doesn’t get the chance.

Strong hands, small and steady, gently drawing her arms away from her face. And then that voice again, prayerful and tender and soft, a monk who’s not a monk, whispering her name and telling her to breathe, breathe, _breathe_.

Sandy tries. Tries so hard, but she—

“Can’t.” She’s gasping, choking. Her chest feels ready to burst. “I can’t, I can’t, I—”

“Shh. Shh.”

Her eyes roll back in her head. She’s vaguely aware of her body shaking, her lungs heaving as they struggle for air, her tongue shaping noises that don’t make sense. She’s vaguely aware of everything, but only vaguely and only for a moment, and then everything sort of pitches and falls away, and she—

And she’s falling away too, out of the room and out of her own head and out of everything, falling, and falling and _falling_ —

And everything is so dark—

And it takes her in, and swallows her down, as deep as an ocean—

And she thinks dimly, deliriously, _at least I can’t drown_ —

But then, impossibly, she does.

*

She surfaces, what feels like a lifetime later, gasping and choking and _herself_.

It’s rather difficult to drown, she muses deliriously, when there isn’t any water. Even more so when she could have breathed it in even if there were. And for the few long minutes it takes for her to find and catch her bearings, that’s the only thought her scrambled mind can manage.

Not drowning. Not dying. _Alive_.

Unconscious, only unconscious.

Again.

She sits up slowly, and looks around. Discovers, with relief beyond measure, that everything is familiar, that she sees and knows and recognises everything. The high, slanted ceiling above her head, the narrow walls closing in all around her, all of it.

She’s on the floor again, in the same cramped little storage room they brought her after last night’s episode. A quiet, dusty little room, not much space but plenty of privacy. Good for recuperating, not so much for breathing. No space, no air. No—

Her breath rattles in her chest, her throat, heaving and desperate—

“Sandy!”

And she looks up into big wide worried eyes, and she _knows_ them.

“Tripitaka.”

“Oh, thank the...”

Tripitaka, yes. She’d know that breathless relief anywhere. In an instant she’s on her knees, pulling Sandy into a hug so fierce that her already starved lungs threaten to give up entirely.

“...can’t breathe.”

“Right.” She eases her grip, flushing. “Sorry.”

“Ngh.”

The worry doesn’t dissipate, though, and she looks deathly serious when she presses: “Do you remember me?”

Sandy is in no condition to answer messy questions, but she’s got enough of herself back that she can manage a rusty-sounding, “Yes.”

That’s all she has, though. Simplicity, single syllables, and even that comes with a great effort. She feels like her body has been battered from the inside, like her mind has been crushed by its own weight. She feels sick and shaky, and her nerves scream with the lingering echo of fear and pain and horror. She closes her eyes, feels her muscles locking and seizing, resisting the closeness of Tripitaka’s body.

Still, even knowing that it’s causing her distress, it is another long moment before Tripitaka seems willing or able to let her go and pull away completely. She moves slowly, cautiously, pushing Sandy’s hair back and frowning into her face, searching for signs of coherence or confusion in her eyes, all the while tears gleam in her own.

“How do you feel?”

Quiet. Subdued. From her, usually so expressive, it’s unsettling. Sandy tries to find a smile, tries to make herself look better than she feels, if only for Tripitaka’s sake. It doesn’t work, but at least she tries. At least she has the strength to do that much.

“Been better,” she admits.

“That’s okay.” The look on her face says that might not be true, though. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Yes.” Explaining it in any kind of detail would take more words and more effort than she’s capable of right now, so she sticks to what is simple. “Forgot you. Forgot where I was. Forgot...” She’s still shaking, she realises with a sort of numb detachment. “Forgot _everything_.”

“Yeah.” Tripitaka’s voice is a whisper. “You did.”

Sandy tries, and fails, to stop her body from shivering. She’s aching all over, like she’s in the throes of a terrible sickness, unable to get warm. “What’s wrong with me?”

“I don’t know,” Tripitaka says, in a whisper. “But we’re going to find out.”

She squeezes Sandy’s hands once, with devastating, feather-light gentleness, like she’s afraid of breaking her even more than she already is, then swings up to her feet in a single, fluid motion. She doesn’t say anything else, simply gestures for Sandy to stay where she is, then stalks of out the room with a sober look on her face.

Sandy watches her leave, feeling frightened and not really knowing why. 

Not alone. The others are here too, Monkey and Pigsy. Not nearly as comforting as Tripitaka, either one of them. But at least she’s not alone.

Monkey is pacing the little room, back and forth and back and forth, like he can will the situation to evaporate. He’s more agitated than she’s seen him in a long time, rolling his shoulders and toying with his staff, and he’s doing a very good job of not looking at her, of pretending she’s not there at all.

Sandy understands that. Looking at her, he’d have no choice to take in her pathetic state, no choice but to acknowledge the feelings it would spark in him, the idea that he might _care_ , that he might be _worried_.

Can’t have that, oh no. So he twirls his staff and paces the length of the room a few dozen times and mutters scathing cruelties under his breath — _“more trouble than she’s worth”_ and _“always has to make things difficult”_ — like he thinks she’s too far gone to hear him, like he thinks she’s stupid enough not to know why he’s saying it.

If he doesn’t care, it won’t hurt. If he can convince himself she’s useless, he can pretend it won’t break him if she—

Sandy swallows hard. Turns away from him before the thought can drag her down into its depths.

On the other side of the little room, Pigsy. Not pacing, of course; he never moves unless he has to. But he’s agitated as well, and he won’t look at her either.

Looks very different on him, though. He’s never been afraid to show he’s worried, never been afraid to admit that he cares; he takes the pain with the joy, so much more aware than the rest of them that the two go hand-in-hand. But the look on his face now is something else entirely. Not worry, and if it’s compassion it’s a kind that Sandy doesn’t recognise. He looks almost—

 _Ashamed_.

Like he thinks this is all his fault. Like he truly believes...

“It’s not,” Sandy blurts out.

He starts, seeming to notice for the first time that she’s looking at him, then blinks his confusion. “You what, now?”

“Not your fault,” Sandy clarifies. “Couldn’t have known I’d react like this.”

His expression darkens almost imperceptibly, but he’s still blinking. “Uh...”

“Never been intoxicated before,” she goes on, very carefully. Speaking is difficult; her tongue feels like it’s too big for her mouth, and it hurts to swallow. “Not properly. Not like this. How could you have known it would do this? I didn’t even know.”

The confusion falls off his face, but the shame and the pain do not. “I...” But whatever he wanted to say, he shakes it off and takes her words at their face value. “Yeah. Okay. Right.”

And then silence. Awkward, uncomfortable, and thoroughly miserable.

Sandy feels terrible. Physically, yes, and inside her head, but in her heart as well. Almost more there than anywhere else, to tell the truth of it.

Last night, before this began, the whole world was lit up with joy, the air ringing out with songs of victory and triumph, endless and beautiful, a celebration that spread through the whole of the Jade Mountain. Davari gone, his demons defeated, the world just a little bit closer to safe. Everything was wonderful, everyone at peace. Even with her thoughts scattered, she remembers that. Pigsy and Tripitaka, laughing and playful, arguing about silly little things that didn’t matter. Monkey, scowling on the outside but smiling on the inside, hiding his happiness in the secret places where he thought no-one would see it.

But they did. They all did. 

Sandy had watched them, feeling the warm liquor-haze settle in her chest, and she had thought, _this is my family_.

And now this.

Now, she forgets their names. Now, she loses herself and falls and wakes somewhere else with no memory or why or how. Now, she can’t seem to keep a thought in her head without feeling like she’ll burst and shatter from the inside. Now, she feels cracked and splintered and wrong in every part of her, and she doesn’t know why, doesn’t know anything, only that this — that she — is the reason why her friends, her _family_ , are not happy any more.

She pulls her knees up to her chest, hugs them as tightly as she can. Eyes shut, breathing slow and steady, she wishes she could vanish, wishes she could disappear from this as easily as she can disappear into the shadows, as easily as she can turn her body to mist and leave the world behind.

Can’t, though. Can’t disappear from what she is. Can’t pretend it’s—

“You don’t seriously still believe that, do you?”

Monkey, sharp and sudden, blurting out his thoughts the way he does sometimes. Sandy looks up, finds him scowling at her with his hands on his hips.

“Sorry?” she manages, scrambling to understand. “Don’t believe what?”

“That.” He says it like it’s obvious, like anyone in the world should be able to follow his train of thought, even when they can’t follow their own. “This whatever-it-is that’s happening to you. Don’t tell me you still think it’s because you had too much to drink last night.”

“I...” She frowns, confused. “Yes?”

“No.” He’s rolling his eyes so fervently that she gets dizzy just from watching him. “That’s stupid. I mean, even by your standards, that’s stupid.”

Sandy doesn’t appreciate the insult, but she’s in no condition to challenge him. “Then what is it?”

“Dunno. I’m not an expert. But it’s obviously more than just that. I mean, _obviously_.”

Sandy thinks on that. Tries to, anyway, but her mind still won’t work. Her thoughts are blurry and indistinct, pain hammering on her skull every time she tries to bend her mind to her will. She feels crippled, but only inside her head. Body sick but working, limbs strong even as they shake, but her mind is stunted and hobbled and it doesn’t work any more. They’ll have to do the thinking for her, Monkey and Pigsy and Tripitaka. Maybe have to do other things for her too, if this keeps up.

It is not a pleasant thought.

On the other side of the room, Pigsy squirms. The guilt is giving way now to a different kind of discomfort; he seems sort of lost in his own thoughts, and when he speaks there is a strange, uncharacteristic distance to his voice.

“Let’s not leap to conclusions, eh?” Dogged as ever, though he doesn’t sound especially happy about it this time. “Can’t really say anything for sure, only that her head’s a volatile place at the best of times.”

Sandy presses the heels of her hands against her temples. Thinking, even just enough to make words, sends sharp pulses of pain and nausea all through her.

“Volatile, yes,” she says, strained and miserable. “But not like this.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.”

Tripitaka.

She re-enters the room without flourish, like she was never really gone at all, shoulders square and eyes very hard. She’s carrying the bowl of broth in one hand and an old moth-eaten blanket in the other, and she sets them both down in front of Sandy like a parent tending to a sick child. She touches her face, rubs her arms, tries to soothe her, and Sandy’s body shudders, like it can’t quite figure out whether it should feel comforted or violated by so much attention.

“Eat,” Tripitaka tells her, with gentle authority. “You still need breakfast.”

And without waiting for a response, she sits down next to her and pulls the blanket over them both.

Sandy wills her body not to flinch. Wills it not to rebel. Wills it to be _quiet_. 

“I’ll do my best,” she manages, and does just that, eating with care and trying not to breathe too deeply.

The food is good. Soothing, definitely, and she swallows it down without much difficulty. Surprising, yes, but she’s not complaining. It makes her feel good, warms her from the inside, throws up strange memories of cold days she never knew, a fireplace warming the skin on her face. It sends her spiralling into moments she’s never experienced before, or possibly moments she forgot a long time ago, comfort and discomfort all at once.

Hard to tell if they’re real or not, forgotten or imagined. Hard to tell anything any more, her thoughts still in disarray. She doesn’t trust them, doesn’t trust the place inside of her that says she’s had this broth before, no more than she trusts the part of her that’s absolutely certain she’s never tasted it in her life.

Tripitaka rubs her back as she eats, like she thinks it’ll help the food go down easier. It’s not really needed, but the contact is pleasant, and so Sandy doesn’t point that out. She’s still not sure she trusts Tripitaka as deeply and unshakeably as she did before the North Water, but after losing her completely — forgetting her, blind and lost, like she’d never heard the name before in her life — she finds herself a little desperate to hold onto her. Like she can keep her memories intact by keeping the important ones close.

When the bowl is empty, when Sandy is full and not quite so light-headed, Tripitaka takes a deep breath and says, barely above a whisper, “You did it last night too.”

Sandy frowns. “I ate breakfast last night?”

That doesn’t sound right.

Pigsy laughs, then catches himself and swiftly sobers. Monkey just rolls his eyes.

“Forgot me,” Tripitaka says, with fraying patience. “You woke up in the middle of the night, screaming again. Like you did in the tavern. Just... screaming. I tried to comfort you, but you didn’t recognise me, didn’t know me at all. You looked straight at me, Sandy, and you...” Her voice breaks, face twisted with distress. “You were _terrified_ of me.”

Sandy swallows. The broth lingers on her tongue, spices and root vegetables and the flickering shadows of firelight. It itches in her mind, under her skin, makes her feel strange all over. But not bad. Her stomach is calm and full, quiet for the first time since this began, and her limbs aren’t shaking quite so badly now they have a little of their strength back. Her mind is still dreadfully unwell, but at least her body can be mended.

She takes a moment to relish that meagre comfort, then another to think about what Tripitaka said. She has no memory of waking in the night, though she remembers being told about it; in that, at least, Tripitaka was honest from the very start. She didn’t mention this, though, the part that actually matters, and Sandy doesn’t know whether to be angry at the omission or upset that Tripitaka had to go through this twice, and once entirely on her own.

“Is this why you were staring at me this morning?” she asks at last, as low as she can. “Because _this_ happened?”

Tripitaka doesn’t answer. “I was worried,” she says, maddeningly evasive. “I’m still worried.”

“You should be,” Monkey says.

Hushed and oddly contemplative, he seems almost to be speaking to himself. Like he’s forgotten the rest of them are even there. He hasn’t stopped his pacing, not for a moment, but he’s studying Tripitaka and Pigsy by turns, like he’s trying to pick apart their minds, trying to unravel their sanity until they’re both as tattered as Sandy. It’s not comforting, and Sandy isn’t the only one who thinks so.

“Knock if off,” Pigsy snaps, defensive and uncomfortable. “What are you on about now?”

Monkey rolls his eyes again, but stops staring. “She’s not drunk,” he says. “And she’s not hallucinating. Any idiot with half a brain-cell can see that.”

“Then what?” Tripitaka demands, understandably a little prickly at being called an idiot.

Monkey ignores her. He’s looking at Sandy now, like he can’t see anything else in the world, and there are shadows behind his eyes that weren’t there before.

“Obviously,” he says in a hoarse sort of whisper, “she’s _remembering_.”

Sandy frowns. He looks so serious, so intense, but she’s not sure she understands where he’s coming from. Doesn’t make sense, doesn’t mesh with the holes she feels inside of her.

“Not remembering,” she says, sounding out the word very carefully, trying to capture its meaning and keep it close. “Forgetting. Very different thing.” She ducks her head, suddenly feeling the weight of her life, the dark things it did to her mind, the seeds of madness it planted in her. “Remembering isn’t something I do particularly well.”

“Yeah. We know.” He snorts, but it’s not as derisive as it might normally be. “Maybe that’s why you don’t recognise it.”

Pigsy makes an unhappy noise from his corner. He looks even more discomfited now, if such a thing is possible; maybe it’s just worry, the same panicky sort of fear Sandy sees in Tripitaka’s eyes, but somehow she doesn’t think so. They’ve all had plenty of reasons to worry about each other since they set out together on the quest, and she’s had many opportunities to see what it looks like on him. Stoic, quiet. Not contemplative, at least not exactly, but as close to it as he ever gets.

This isn’t like that. The more Monkey talks, the more he looks—

Scared?

No. Can’t be right. Not him. She’s never, ever seen him scared.

Upset, then.

Still a little guilty, maybe? Still blaming himself?

She doesn’t know. He’s inscrutable when he wants to be. The only thing she can say for sure is that he’s not happy about any of this.

“I still say you’re jumping to conclusions,” he says to Monkey, gravel thickening his voice. “She has too much to drink, loses the plot a couple of times, and you think she’s having some sort of... what?”

Monkey shrugs, but he’s never more determined to hold onto a point when someone is trying to argue with him.

“How would I know?” he snaps. “She’s the one remembering it, not me.” He glances back at Sandy as he speaks, and his shoulders loosen a bit, like he’s sorry for being so jagged but doesn’t really know how to be anything else, like this is the only way he knows how to show compassion. “I can’t say what’s going on inside her head, that’s her thing. But I’ve been there. And I know what I’m talking about.”

The reminder sucks all the air out of the little room. Sandy feels a depth of self-loathing, furious with herself for making him think of it.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

He ignores that. Doesn’t even seem to hear her at all, lost in his own anguished history.

“I know what it’s like,” he says again. “Trying to recapture lost memories. Trapped in the darkest corners of my mind.” There are tremors in his voice; Sandy remembers the tremors _there_ , too, in the breaking ground, him lying motionless on the floor. “You almost lost me in there, remember?”

Beside her, Tripitaka shivers; the sensation vibrates along Sandy’s nerves. “I remember.”

“So maybe trust me on this one, yeah?” His voice drops a couple of octaves, weighed down by his own mnemonic pain. “She’s not forgetting you, monk. She’s remembering something that happened before she ever knew you. Something she blocked out, maybe, or something she wanted to forget.”

Sandy turns that thought over a couple of times in her head. It feels vast and impossible, wrong but not in the way that means incorrect. Suddenly, she is frightened beyond words.

“Something like what?” she whispers.

Monkey shrugs. “How should I know? It’s your scrambled little brain, not mine. Only one who can answer that is you.”

It’s not exactly helpful, but she takes it as graciously as she can.

Tripitaka studies him for a long beat, looking thoughtful and puzzled by turns. Then, at last, she turns to Sandy again with soft eyes. 

“What do you think?”

 _I think my head hurts,_ Sandy doesn’t say. _I think I feel sick and scared and I don’t understand anything. I think you’re asking me to make sense of things that don’t make sense, but I can’t and I’m hurting and I just want it to stop, please, please just make it stop._

Wants to say it, yes, so badly it makes her want to cry. But she doesn’t. Just shakes her head and sighs as her limbs start to tense and shiver, chills spasming through her muscles.

“I don’t know,” she says, because Tripitaka won’t stop staring, because the others are looking at her now too, expecting her to know more than she does. “Don’t know what to think. Don’t know anything. Only know that it hurts and that I’m...”

No.

Doesn’t say she’s scared. 

Won’t admit that part. Not ever. Not even to Tripitaka.

“Okay.” But maybe she hears it anyway, because she’s touching her again like she thinks she can chase away all the fear and pain. Warm hand, much too warm, on the side of her neck, like she’s trying to measure her heartbeat, or to reassure herself that she’s still breathing. “Can you stand by yourself?”

Sandy shrugs, stretches her legs out in front of her. She feels much steadier now that she’s eaten, and her body obeys her instructions with only a little effort. It’s not as difficult as it was, standing up and staying there, keeping her feet under her and the room in one place. Everything is still and solid, and when she takes a couple of experimental steps it comes as easily as it always did before. She can stand, she can walk; it should be such a tiny victory, but after the madness in her head it feels so, so big.

“Yes,” she says, as surprised as anyone by the fact. “Apparently I can.”

Pigsy chuckles from his corner. “Told you,” he says, though his smugness is oddly strained now. “Breakfast cures everything. You’ll be as right as rain by lunchtime, like nothing ever happened. You’ll see.”

“Knock it off,” Monkey snaps. “It’s obviously more than that.”

He’s hurting, Sandy can tell, and deeply. Feels this on a personal level, the echo of his ordeal in the breaking ground like a drumbeat he can’t ignore. She hates that he’s feeling this way, forced to remember something so awful, and she hates that she’s the reason why.

Pigsy, meanwhile, either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. He’s sullen and irritable, and he definitely doesn’t want to hear what Monkey is trying to say. Why it bothers him so much, she can’t tell, but he’s resistant to the point of belligerence.

“Right,” he’s muttering, waving a dismissive hand. “Sure. Because you got lost inside your head one time, it’s obviously going to happen to everyone.” He rolls his eyes. “And _I’m_ the one trying to project _my_ issues?”

“Yeah, you are.” Heated, bitter. The sound makes Sandy flinch, touching a nerve deep inside her, half-buried and wholly intangible. “Just because _you_ can blame all of _your_ problems on too much ale—”

“That’s enough.” Tripitaka, glaring them both into silence. Sandy’s knees almost buckle, so potent is her relief. “You’re not helping, either of you. This is hard enough already; she doesn’t need you two trying to one-up each other and making it even harder.”

Monkey opens his mouth, then wisely closes it again; he always seems to know when not to cross Tripitaka. Something to do with the crown sutra, perhaps; Sandy rather doubts it’s the product of common sense. Still, the effect remains, and his whole body deflates.

“Right.” He bows his head to Tripitaka, then looks at Sandy with startling and unexpected softness. “Sorry. I just... I don’t want you to have to go through what I did. That’s all.”

“Appreciated.” Sandy touches her head. It feels bruised on the inside. “Not sure I’d like to do that either.”

Monkey grunts his affirmation, then turns away. Giving her space, or perhaps feeling the need to hide his face. Either way, they all grant him the moment without comment.

Tripitaka, visibly upset, takes Sandy by the hand.

“Come on,” she says, holding on tight. “Let’s go somewhere quieter.”

*

The main tavern shouldn’t be quieter than the storage room, but it is.

Possibly this is an illusion borne of the last few minutes; anything would seem quiet after Monkey and Pigsy’s ceaseless bickering. More likely, though, it is the fact that the place is almost empty now, cleared out, no doubt, after Sandy’s last lapse. Sad, but understandable. Who would willingly choose to stay in a room with a god on the edge of madness?

“Bad business,” the barkeep remarks when she sees them. “Chasing away my loyal customers. If you weren’t with the Monkey King, I’d have half a mind to charge you double for the loss of customers.”

She’s smiling, though, and Sandy is almost sure she’s not serious.

Tripitaka smiles too, unaffected, and with a sort of comfortable familiarity. Sandy wonders if they’ve talked about this, about her, if Tripitaka needed to explain away Sandy’s erratic behaviour. She wonders how she phrased it, if she did; did she shrink it down to a cup of ale, like Pigsy, or did she admit to the maybe-truth, forgetting and remembering and a god’s mind splitting apart at the seams? Sandy doesn’t know that she’s comfortable having insides put on display like that, but she can’t deny it’s only right when the poor woman keeps having to deal with her like this.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, looking at the floor. “My mind is... not well.”

“That’s your excuse, eh?” She’s still smiling. “Well, whatever works for you, I suppose.”

She leaves them alone after that, busying herself behind the bar like it’s no concern of hers, who comes and goes in her establishment, or what they do when they’re there.

Tripitaka nods her thanks, then guides Sandy over to the fireplace. She’s still touching her very lightly, speaking slowly, treating her like she’s something delicate and broken, a child or a plant that needs tending; Sandy doesn’t know how to feel about it. Coddled, swaddled, smothered, yes, but also deeply cared for.

She sits down in front of the warm fire, shuffling as close as she can get without burning her hands, and Tripitaka doesn’t join her until she’s sure that Sandy is settled in and comfortable.

“I thought it might be better to talk about it in private,” she says, after a brief, contemplative silence. “I don’t know if you ever told them what... what you told me. At the North Water, I mean. When you were trying to...” She takes a shaky breath. “When you were trying to talk sense into me. I don’t know if they know any of that, but...”

She trails off, uncomfortable. Sandy doesn’t need to look at her to know that it’s still a bitter pill, their last moments there. Recalling how wrong she was, knowing that she should have listened, aware now in a way she wasn’t then of how much suffering she could have avoided if she had.

There’s a lot Sandy could say about that, but she won’t. Not now. More important things to discuss. Her words, the things she shared, baring her pain to the air for the first time in her life.

“They don’t know.” She swallows hard; the honesty is very difficult. “Never told anyone before you.”

Tripitaka nods, sighing with the sort of sorrow that comes with being right about something unpleasant.

“I thought it might be something like that,” she says, each word another little sigh. “You don’t talk very much. I don’t think I’d ever heard that many words from you before. I thought you...”

“Had to do it,” Sandy blurts out, staring into the fireplace. “For you. To try and make you see. Make you understand. I...” Talking about it makes her feel vulnerable all over again, small and fragile like she felt that night, and the confession sputters out like smoke on the air. “I had to.”

“I know. I...” She shifts, moving her body away a little. Sandy can’t immediately tell which one of them she’s trying to give space. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wouldn’t listen. I’m sorry I pushed you to do that. I’m sorry for... for everything.”

“Don’t.” Her head is starting to hurt again, pulsing in rhythm of her words; she doesn’t want to talk about it any more, doesn’t want to think about it. “It’s done. Finished. You did what you did, and I did what I did.”

“Yeah.” She’s got her hands in front of her, a sort of barrier between them, under the pretence of warming them over the fire. “That’s not why I brought it up.”

Sandy waits for her to elucidate, but she doesn’t. She just sits there, like she’s waiting for her to ask. Hard to know if she wants to give Sandy autonomy over an uncomfortable conversation or if she needs the push to make herself speak.

Sandy sighs; given the choice, she would gladly sit in silence until the morning started to fade into afternoon, but the stillness brings contemplation, brings _thought_ , and she is so, so afraid of what will happen if her mind is given the chance to wander again.

“Why, then?” she asks, feeling and sounding so shaky.

Tripitaka keeps her eyes on the fire. The light dances in her eyes, the flames reflected and refracted into something more beautiful and less dangerous; if she didn’t know it would be considered rude, Sandy could happily spend the rest of her life watching the way Tripitaka’s eyes reflect different kinds of light, the way they bend and smudge it to softness.

It’s not what normal people do, though, and so she forces herself to stop. Looks away, studies her hands instead, and waits for an answer.

Finally, anxiously, Tripitaka says, “I guess I thought it might help to talk about it.”

“Again?” Sandy frowns, perplexed. “You enjoy talking about things entirely too much.”

“True.” She doesn’t smile, though, like she normally would. “But I’m serious. If this... if it really is your mind trying to remember something, like Monkey says, maybe it’ll help to talk it through? See if there are any holes in your memory that you... that might be trying to resurface?”

Sandy laughs coarsely. “My memory is nothing _but_ holes, Tripitaka.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” Her eyes are bright, hopeful, but there’s still so much sorrow tugging at the corners of her lips. “You remembered enough about your childhood to use it against me in the North Water. And you remembered the Scholar when we first met. What he told you, what he said about me.”

Sandy’s chest tightens. She doesn’t know why. “Yes.”

“So maybe try and see what else is in there.” She leans in, touches Sandy’s temples with soft fingertips, and the fire turns to water in her eyes. “I mean, if you trust me to hear it, after...”

Sandy swallows hard. _I don’t_ , she thinks automatically, at the same time as another, much smaller part of her thinks, _always_.

“Don’t know what to say,” she mumbles, and she means it in more than just where to begin. “Don’t know what you want from me. You want me to tell you what the Scholar was like?”

Tripitaka flinches, but can’t seem to stop herself from nodding. “If you like.”

Sandy does not ‘like’, but it’s impossible to resist the hope in Tripitaka’s eyes.

“He was gentle. Kind. Very patient.” Her head aches, a dull pulse of pain like a threat; she closes her eyes for a beat or two, then presses on. “Taught me many things. Things I couldn’t learn anywhere else. About who... about _what_ I was. He was the closest thing to another god I’d ever known, until...”

She trails off. The threat inside her head intensifies sharply, rapidly. There’s a ringing in her ears, and her eyes are starting to water. She feels—

“Take it easy.” Tripitaka, one hand on her arm, the other still touching her temples. “Don’t push yourself.”

Sandy nods, swallows. “This is hard.”

“I know.” Her voice shakes, little tremors that Sandy feels in the places where they’re connected. “What about Monica? You said her name earlier like you were friends. Like you’d spent some time with her.”

Sandy considers this, not just the question but the weight behind it. She doesn’t know much about Tripitaka’s friendship with Monica, only that she gave her a home when she had none, only that Tripitaka grows soft and fond whenever she speaks her name. Understandable, she supposes, that these are the figures she would cling to when asking about someone else’s life.

She takes a breath, tries to think back, tries to figure out where Monica fits inside her patchwork past. Some things she can recall with absolute clarity — the walls of the tavern, the ceiling, the sounds and smells of the bar, the way Monica could smile in one moment and then grow stern and keen in the next — but she doesn’t know _how_ she knows them.

Trying to find the images in her head, it’s like stepping into a different world, a corner of herself set apart from the rest, the scary things outside, but she can’t remember how or why—

The pain in her head gets worse. The ringing in her ears gets louder. The room grows dim, vision blurry, and she feels herself start to dissolve, recognises the sensation now. Terror overwhelms her, strangling her throat, squeezing her ribs, and she shoves Tripitaka’s hands away with desperate urgency.

“I can’t.” She clutches her head, grip so tight it hurts, like she can hold the pieces of herself inside if she just holds on hard enough. “I can’t... please, I...”

“Okay.” Tripitaka’s voice is a little pitchy now, sharp with fear but still so gentle. “It’s okay. Can you hear me?”

Sandy moans. She’s shaking, shivering, shuddering. The world is flickering all around her, and she knows enough this time to anticipate what’s coming, to brace herself for the way it starts to spin, the way her mind starts to—

“Tripitaka.” Clings to the name like it’s the only word in the whole world, the only thing keeping her sane. “Tripitaka, _please_ —”

“It’s okay.” Firmer, but still gentle, sort of protective. “It’s okay, Sandy, it’s okay. Just try to focus on me, okay? Focus on the sound of my voice.”

Sandy tries to nod. Tries to _listen_. Tries to tether herself, to hold on to the things that matter, to the name of a monk who isn’t a monk, the young girl who called herself a boy, who calls herself _Tripitaka_ , the girl who was lost and lonely and looking for a family, who was going to abandon her—

Just like—

She chokes. “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t—”

“I won’t, I promise. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. I promise, Sandy. I—”

“No.” She’s crying, or she thinks she is. “No, you said that last time. You said—”

But she can’t remember, can’t grasp anything but the feeling. Alone. Abandoned. Wailing, whimpering, the air soaked and heavy, the world drowning, drenched, dissolving. _Don’t go, don’t leave me, please—_

And Tripitaka replaces her hands with her own, holds her face as tight as a vice and forces her to look into her wide, dark eyes.

“Look at me,” she says. “Just keep looking at me. I’m here. I’m right here, and so are you. Keep looking at me, keep listening to my voice...”

And she talks. Endlessly. About nothing at all. About the sacred scrolls and their quest to find them, about what it was like pretending to be a boy and a monk, about the North Water, all the foolish reasons why she wanted so desperately to believe the lies her not-mother told her, all the reasons she was willing to abandon everything for a chance at a family, all the reasons she regrets it now. On and on, she talks like there’s no end to the words inside of her, and all the while she holds Sandy’s face and holds her eyes and holds her—

And Sandy listens, in spite of herself, listens and watches until the ringing in her ears fades away, until her head stops aching, until it feels like her own again. And she looks at the world around her, and she knows where she is and she knows who she is, and she remembers, she knows, she is _herself_.

She sobs.

And Tripitaka makes a desperate sound that might be a sob as well, and she pulls her into her arms and she whispers “Sandy,” so low and so broken, like she’s scared to hear her reply.

Sandy breathes, or tries to breathe past the thick fabric of monk’s robes, the smell of warmth and fire. Her throat is clogged with tears, but she has to speak, has to make herself real.

“I’m me,” she whispers. “Myself. I think.”

“Good.” She makes that desperate sort-of-sobbing sound again. “And you know who I am?”

“Yes.” The word feels so big. She sobs again, louder. “I know you, Tripitaka. I see you and I know you and I... I _remember_ you.”

Tripitaka gasps, the panic drowned by immeasurable relief.

“Good,” she whispers. “I’ve got you. Just hold on to me.”

She doesn’t mean it literally, Sandy knows. At least, she doesn’t mean it physically. She means for her to hold on to the place inside that recognises her, that lived and breathed the name _Tripitaka_ for all those dark and lonely years, the place that felt so much pain at the North Water, that cared so deeply that she would open up her half-lost memories in hopes of talking sense into her.

She means to hold onto _her_ , the spirit of her, all the myriad things her name has come to mean, the good and the bad and everything in between. Sandy understands this.

But she can’t help herself. She holds on to her physically as well.

As tight as she can, face buried in monk’s robes, taking in her warmth and her strength.

She breathes her in, and holds on for dear life.

*


	3. Chapter 3

*

Later, when the others have joined them, Tripitaka looks Monkey dead in the eye and says, “I think you’re right.”

It’s a big thing to say. Especially big because this is the first time she’s saying the words, out loud, as truth.

She and Sandy sat together by the fire for a long while, talking and then not talking, trying to draw maps and lines between the moments when Sandy’s mind runs off, the places where her head starts to crack and split. Tripitaka was thoughtful, yes, but she kept her feelings mostly to herself, like she was scared Sandy would break on the outside as well as inside if she heard what she was thinking.

Wouldn’t happen, of course. Her outsides have always been stronger than her insides, able to withstand almost any kind of assault. Had to be, really, to survive the terrible things she’s endured over the years.

She doesn’t need to remember everything to know that much.

Tripitaka doesn’t, though. How could she? All she knows is that Sandy is fragile right now, and she doesn’t want to make things worse by saying too much.

So, yes, it is a big thing to say the words out loud. To say, in a place where they can all hear, that she believes there is a memory inside Sandy’s head trying to cut itself loose, some nightmare thing struggling to the surface from its murky depths.

Monkey takes it very seriously. Sandy expects his usual arrogance, expects the need to say ‘I told you so’ to override any measure of compassion, but it doesn’t.

He looks at her, regret gleaming in his eyes, and says, “Wouldn’t have minded being wrong for once.”

“I’m sure it’ll happen again before you know it,” Pigsy mutters.

Maybe he means it in his usual manner, sarcastic but well-intentioned, but it doesn’t sound that way at all. He still looks upset, and there’s a sharpness to him that makes the words cut where they normally wouldn’t. He’s barely said two words since he and Monkey rejoined them, and he’s seated himself as far away from Sandy as possible. They’re crowded around a small table in the corner of the tavern, so distance is relative, but in him it’s noticeable.

He’s usually the first to move in close, taking up as much space as he can, using his big form to offer comfort and compassion just as effectively as threats and warnings, to broadcast everything he’s feeling in inescapable detail. He hugs, he tackles, he holds on tight; he _cares_ , deeply and very physically. Sandy remembers standing on the balcony at the Jade Palace, watching as Monkey and Tripitaka fell, remembers Pigsy standing by her side, his large hand rubbing her back, his body close but not too close, supporting her, keeping her upright without words.

Not so now. Now, he keeps his distance. Doesn’t talk to her, doesn’t look at her, doesn’t really acknowledge her at all. Sandy has never given much thought to his constant presence, but now it’s been taken away she feels the loss like a visceral thing.

Tripitaka clears her throat, dragging Sandy back into the moment. She’s holding her hand, hidden under the table, grounding her as best she can while keeping the contact out of sight; apparently she’s not entirely shaken the part of her that is ashamed, the part that wants to hide its moments of affection. Sandy wishes she could feel hurt by that, but she’s never really known affection to come in any other shape. Always hidden, always a dark little secret, just like everything else she does and feels and is.

“I think,” Tripitaka is saying, “we should try to find someone better equipped at handling this sort of thing.”

Monkey snorts a dry, humourless laugh. “How do you plan to do that?” he asks, sharp but not malicious. He does wants to help, Sandy can tell, truly and sincerely; he’s just not very good at it. “You want us to send out a call for experts in broken god brains?”

Pigsy laughs as well, a rougher sound with jagged edges; it grates along Sandy’s nerves, makes her almost wish he’d stayed quiet instead. He’s not subdued like Monkey, not thoughtful or wanting to help; he’s just dismissive.

“Good luck with that,” he mutters. “The only people I’ve ever met who bothered themselves with gods’ brains are—”

“Demons. ” Tripitaka, hushed and deathly serious. She’s thought this through at great length, Sandy realises, and for some reason that makes her very uncomfortable. “And one demon in particular.”

She lets that sink in, sitting back in her chair and watching their faces as they process it, one by one.

Monkey, of course, is the first to understand, and the first to react. He’s already on his feet, a simmering cloud of fury, before Sandy has even halfway figured out what Tripitaka is talking about. No surprise that he would grasp it the quickest, or that he would take it the most personally. Of all of them, he has the most unpleasant experience with demons in general, and with this one specifically.

“The creep from the nightmare factory?” His voice is like steel forged in flame. “No.”

“Monkey...”

“ _No_.” Harder. Angrier, too, bordering on violence. Sandy shrinks down a little in her chair, feeling unsafe. “After everything he’s done to us? _No_.”

“He’s the only person I can think of with experience in—”

“In tearing gods’ minds to pieces?” Each word more venomous, more deadly than the last. “Yeah, I’d say he’s an expert in that.”

“Monkey!”

“He _brutalised_ us, monk. He kidnapped us, twisted our minds, and forced us to do his dirty work against our will. He pushed me so far into my memory that you nearly lost me for good.” His eyes grow even darker, if that’s possible. “And then he threw you to your death.”

Tripitaka sighs. She is usually very patient with Monkey and his temper, content to sit or stand quietly and wait for him to wear himself out, but apparently the urgency of the situation has frayed her patience as well as his. She barely waits for him to finish speaking before she sits up again, spine straight and eyes burning, ready and willing to make this a fight if she has to, to do whatever it takes to get her way. Sandy is touched by how deeply she cares, and devastated by how deeply Monkey is hurting.

“He was following Davari’s orders,” Tripitaka reminds him, quiet but intense. “But his master’s gone now. He has no reason to hurt us any more.”

“He’s a _demon_ ,” Monkey snaps. “It’s his _nature_ to hurt us. He doesn’t need Davari pulling strings to make him do it. And it doesn’t change the dozen times he already did.”

“I know,” Tripitaka says, with as much gentleness as she seems able to muster. “But I think we can reason with him.”

“How?” Pigsy asks, sounding genuinely curious. “I mean, seriously. Out of all the messed-up things he did to us, which is the one that screamed ‘I’m actually a pretty decent bloke’ to you?”

Tripitaka scowls, but it lacks her usual ferocity. “I don’t know.”

Sandy understands. It’s her nature, human nature, to find faith in things that should not be trusted. Just as she believed with all her heart and soul in a woman who claimed to be her mother, so she believes again now, in a demon who has given her no reason to feel anything but hatred and resentment.

“He did leave,” Sandy hears herself mumble, more to defend Tripitaka’s idealism than the Shaman’s reputation. “Rather than trying to avenge Davari. He could have fought, but he left.”

“Because he knew we’d’ve killed him in a heartbeat,” Monkey says flatly. It’s not hyperbole; Sandy can tell he’s speaking true. Given half a chance, he would have slain him on the spot and not given it a second thought. “He was outnumbered and outmatched, and he knew it. So he ran away. Like a worthless demon coward.”

Feeling flayed by his sharp voice, Sandy swallows the urge to vanish. Tripitaka squeezes her hand, then goes back to trying to reason with Monkey.

“Coward or not,” she says carefully, “I think we have to try. There’s no-one else I can think of who might be able to help. And she...” Her voice breaks, suddenly thick with tears. “Monkey, she needs _help_.”

Monkey shakes his head again, emphatically, then shoves his body between Tripitaka’s chair and Sandy’s, like he’s trying to protect her from the human as much as the demon.

“I’m not letting him poke around in her head,” he says flatly. “Or any of our heads. Mine, especially.” His eyes flash, heat and threat, so full of it that Sandy flinches. “I’m not going through that again. And I’m not going to let him do it to anyone else either.” He crosses his arms, never taking his eyes off Tripitaka, daring her with every molecule in his body to try and change his mind. “We find another option. That’s it.”

“And what if there is no other option?” she asks in a low, fearful voice. “It’s already getting worse. How can you be sure we have the time to think of something else? How can you be sure—”

“More sure of that than I am of trusting a demon,” he says hotly. “Especially one who tortured me and nearly killed you.” His shoulders bunch, tightening with determination. “Answer’s still no.”

Tripitaka turns, faces Sandy with hopeful eyes. “What do you—”

“ _No_.” But Monkey won’t even let her do that. “No, don’t you dare turn this on her. She’s confused, she’s messed up, she’s scared. And let’s face it, she can barely tell up from down even on a good day.” His passion is touching, if misplaced and somewhat insulting. “Don’t try and push your stupid ideas on someone too vulnerable to know what’s good for them. Don’t you dare try to make her—”

Sandy clears her throat as loudly as she dares, cutting him off. “Not _that_ far gone,” she says, thankful but firm. “I can still think for myself.”

“Oh, really?” This time, when he turns his wrath on her, it is more comforting than frightening. It means he doesn’t think she’s so crippled that she can’t take it, and she desperately needs someone to see her that way right now. “Do you know what that creep will do if you let him inside your head? Do you remember what he did to us the last time? What he did to _me_?” He rounds on Tripitaka again, an open vein of pain and rage. “Or did we all forget the part where he pushed me so far back into my stupid memory that I needed you to haul me back out?”

“No-one’s forgotten that, Monkey.” She lets go of Sandy’s hand, leans up to take his instead. “But we did get you out of it. And what you learned from going back there... that was important.”

“I don’t care.”

Sandy takes a deep breath, braces both hands on the table, and whispers, “I do.”

“You’re not thinking straight,” Monkey informs her flatly. “Do you have any idea what it’s like—”

“Do _you_?” She says it slowly, and with great care; speaking is difficult, and she is so afraid that the murmurs in the back of her mind will swell again if she pushes herself too hard. Blessedly, he has just enough restraint in him to hold still and listen. “Monkey. Something is happening to me. Something I can’t control, something I don’t understand. I am hurting and I am frightened, and I don’t believe any demon can make that worse than it already is.”

Her eyes sting; she wants to cry but can’t risk losing what little dignity she has left. Monkey takes the opportunity of her brief pause to start again: “He could tear you apart if he wanted to.”

“So let him.” The sudden quiet, so close to calm, startles her as much as him. “Let him do as he wants. If he harms me, at least this time I’ll know where the pain is coming from.”

She stands. It is much, much harder than it should be. Monkey’s face starts to blur at the edges, so she stops looking at him and squints down at the table. Tripitaka is leaning forwards on her elbows, watching her, and Sandy tries to keep her attention on the fabric of her robes, the way it flutters and billows against the wooden surface.

Tripitaka, sensing her distress, grabs her arm. “Happening again?”

Sandy breathes. Tries to, at least. Holds herself upright, _breathes_ , and—

“No.” It’s an effort to get the word out, but she does. “No, just feeling a little...”

“Okay.” And her hand is back where it needs to be, squeezing Sandy’s fingers until they’re numb. She locks eyes with her for a moment, until she’s sure she won’t start drowning, then glowers at Monkey again. “See?”

Monkey glares right back, but this time he keeps his protestations to himself.

“I want to know,” Sandy says, when she trusts herself to speak again; she tries to address him, to placate him, but it’s hard to take her eyes off Tripitaka, the place where she knows she’s safe. “Want to find out what my mind is trying to tell me.”

Finally, if grudgingly, Monkey softens a little. Possibly the sight of her struggling affected him a bit, possibly he just needed to hear it from her instead of Tripitaka; either way, he throws up his arms and skulks sullenly back to his chair.

“If that’s what you want,” he huffs, moody like he always gets when he hasn’t got his way. “Who am I to stop you? I mean, other than the guy who actually knows what he’s talking about.”

Sandy musters a weak chuckle.

“I’ll be sure to check with you on all crucial points,” she promises. “And you can hold your staff to the Shaman’s throat for as long as you need to feel comfortable. Yes?”

That definitely cheers him up. He doesn’t loosen up completely, but the fire sputters out of his eyes and his shoulders lose a little of their tension.

“Fine,” he mutters at last. “But only because I _really_ want to do that.”

The tension bleeds out of the air at last, and Sandy can breathe again.

On the other side of the table, Pigsy clears his throat.

“And we’re sure this is a sensible idea?” he asks softly. It’s the first time he’s said anything in a while, and he stares at his knuckles as he speaks. “With or without the Shaman, I mean. Are we sure this is something we should be messing about with in the first place? I mean, repressed memories... they’re usually repressed for a reason. Maybe it’d be better for everyone if we just stuff this one back where it came from, eh?”

Tripitaka quirks a brow. “Pigsy, this isn’t like forgetting a birthday. This is _hurting_ her.”

“I know. Uh, I get that. I just mean...” He sighs. “Could be unpleasant, you know?”

“More unpleasant than losing myself?” Sandy asks hoarsely. “Because that’s what it feels like is happening. And I want...” She closes her eyes, struggles to put her feelings into words without drowning. “Memory is not a gift I have in any measurable quantity. Never have. If the Shaman can help me to make some of it whole again, I think I would very much like that. Even if it’s unpleasant. I...” She turns her face away, hiding it behind her hair. “I am so tired of not knowing myself.”

It is much harder than she anticipates, saying that out loud. Admitting, for perhaps the first time in her life, that she is broken on the inside, that her brokenness has defined her for so long she doesn’t know any other way of existing. That it is _exhausting_ , living with only a half-awareness of her own mind.

It never really bothered her before the quest. Had no reason to think about it, really, or see it as a problem. She lived alone, she waited for a mysterious monk who never appeared, she hunted demons when she should have been sleeping; it was the only life she knew. No reason to think further, no reason to wonder how she came to be there or what happened in the flickers and fractures of time she couldn’t account for. With no-one to talk to, how could she know these were questions in need of answers?

But then Tripitaka appeared, and the Monkey King. And then there were questions, so many questions, and again and again she searched her mind for answers and found it empty.

She is tired of that. She is tired of being confused, of feeling lost inside her own thoughts, of reaching for things she knows must exist but refuse to answer her call. She is tired of catching them only in moments of intense feeling, of only recognising pieces of her life when they threaten to repeat themselves, only recalling the smell of fish when she finds herself searching for it in a village with none. She is tired of knowing nothing for days, months, years, and then suddenly, in a burst of blinding pain, knowing more than she can endure. She is tired of—

She is _tired_.

Eyes closed, reeling against herself, she feels Tripitaka squeeze her hand again, then rise to her feet and lean in to support her. She can feel the strength radiating from every muscle in her small body, passion and power that overcomes her tininess with ease; even with everything that happened between them, abandonment and almost-betrayal, Sandy would gladly put her life in those little hands. May have to do it still, before this is finished.

“Come on,” Tripitaka says, and her voice seems to fill the tavern. “Let’s go hunt a demon.”

*

They begin at the Jade Palace.

It’s as good a place as any, Tripitaka says, pretending just a little too hard that she hasn’t put much thought into it. She’s not fooling anyone, of course; her tendency to over-plan is known even to people who haven’t met her. Probably has a map of the place hidden somewhere in her robes, as thorough in this as in everything else she does. It is often a blessing, occasionally a burden. Now—

Now, Sandy supposes, it is a ‘start’.

Monkey is deeply unhappy about the whole thing, but he does not give any more voice to his feelings than he already has. Fair enough. He’s made his position clear and so has Tripitaka; there’s nothing to do now but wait and see which one of them comes up right.

Besides, Sandy suspects he’s already feeling self-conscious ashamed of letting so much of his hurt see the light of day; by his standards, the sullen acceptance is like a caged animal licking its wounds.

“He’ll be in the Master’s chambers,” he says to Tripitaka, accepting his defeat by surrendering information. “If he’s still here, that is.”

“Brooding, right?” Pigsy says. He’s keeping his usual sluggish pace, lagging behind the rest of them by a dozen paces or more. “You tall, dark, and handsome types do love to brood.”

Monkey ignores that. “ _If_ he’s still here,” he says again, more emphatically. “And I don’t know why we’re assuming he is. If I were him I’d’ve gotten out of town as fast as I could.”

“He’ll be here,” Tripitaka says, with that unshakeable faith she wears so well. “I know he will.”

Monkey rolls his eyes, but knows better than to attempt common sense when Tripitaka’s gotten some idealistic notion into her head with no concrete evidence to back it up. He lets the subject drop, albeit grudgingly, then makes a point of positioning himself between her and Sandy. Like he thinks she needs shielding from all that cock-eyed optimism.

Perhaps she does, at that. Her heart is fluttering, like it’s trying to break out of her ribcage, and she is dangerously light-headed.

Not just protecting her, though. He waits until they’ve outpaced Tripitaka enough for a little privacy, then clears his throat and says, “So, listen.”

Sandy fails to hide her surprise. “I can do that.”

“Uh huh.” Still, he picks up the pace a little more, like he needs the speed to ground him. “That monk — uh, ex-monk, I guess? — might think she knows what she’s talking about, but she doesn’t. Like, she really hasn’t got a clue.”

“Oh?” She suspects she won’t like where this is going, but she doesn’t want Monkey to see that. “What do you mean?”

He sighs. “Look. You may be a baby next to me and Pigsy, but you’re still one of us. A god. There’s more room inside your head than Tripitaka would have in seven of hers. And all the good intentions in the world, all that stupid optimism of hers... it’s not enough. She’s still human and you’re still a god. And no human will ever understand what it’s like for a god when their mind betrays them.”

Sandy flinches. 

She knows all of this, of course, but that doesn’t mean she wants to hear it said. Doesn’t like to be reminded of all the differences between herself and Tripitaka, all the big and small ways they’ll never truly understand or connect with each other. It is so hard, finding solace in a place so different from herself, but it is comforting too, and she doesn’t want him to make her see the cracks in her small, fragile sanctuary.

“It is true,” she concedes, very slowly, “that Tripitaka often sees things only in their most simple form.”

“Of course she does. She’s human.” He winces. “There’s a reason Davari wanted her to translate the scroll when he’d been using gods for centuries. There’s a reason the Shaman chased us halfway across the continent just to get his hands on her. Humans _are_ simple. That’s what makes them so easy to manipulate. It’s what they were counting on.”

“I know that.” She shudders. “Why are you telling me all this? To make me uncomfortable?”

“No!” He loses his footing, stumbling, and it’s a long moment before he catches his balance again. “Of course not. I’m just... just pointing out that she’s never going to understand, really and truly, what you’re going through. But I do. So, uh, if you need someone to talk to about it... someone who _does_ understand...”

He coughs, flushing hotly, and doesn’t finish.

“You?” Sandy doesn’t smirk — she doesn’t want to upset him when he’s trying so hard — but it’s an effort to keep her expression blank. “Monkey, you despise talking. About anything. You threw a spoon at Pigsy’s head once, because he asked what you wanted for breakfast. And then you threw a spoon at _my_ head because I asked if you’d slept well.”

“It was morning. No-one should be talking when it’s morning.”

A fair point, she supposes. Still, it is hard not to smile just a little.

“You would, then?” she asks cautiously. “Talk? If I wanted it?”

He shrugs. “If I didn’t have anything better to do.”

It is so typical of him that she laughs. Truly. Hollow and haggard, yes, but a laugh. It means more than she’ll ever be able to put into words.

“In that case,” she says, “Thank you. It is surprisingly thoughtful of you to care so much.”

“Hey! Never said I _cared_.” His lips twitch just a little, though, the way they do when he’s only teasing. “But we need to look out for each other. And you’re not... I mean, we both know you can take care of yourself. You’re nearly as tough as I am, when you want to be. But this... this is something else. It’s not something we can see or touch. It’s not... it’s not a fair fight.”

It’s a good way of putting it. Perhaps a little too good; Sandy’s breath catches sharply in her chest.

“No,” she says softly. “It’s not.”

“Right. And it’s not so easy to...” He sighs, shaking his head. “Gods like you and me, we’re not so good at fighting things we can’t swing a weapon at.”

True enough. But—

“Been fighting my own mind for a long time,” she says quietly. “So long, it almost feels like the same thing.” She thinks of the horror, the panic bursting in her chest when her head begins to throb, when her ears begin to ring. “Used to be, anyway. When it was just me, alone, listening to my mind decay. But this...” She grimaces, not wanting to admit it but unable to deny the truth. “This is different. You’re right about that.”

“Yeah.” He pats her shoulder then turns away. Eyes on the never-ending staircase spiralling upwards and out of sight, his breathing is very unsteady. “So if you need someone who understands how it feels... even just a little bit...”

“Thank you.” She means it, even more now than before. Coming from him especially, it is a kindness, and there is some comfort in knowing she’ll have more than just Tripitaka to lean on if things become even worse than they already are. Monkey is so competitive so much of the time, it is much too easy to forget that he is as fiercely devoted to their little family as Tripitaka. “Truly, Monkey, I appreciate it.”

He grunts, then picks up the pace again, like he’s trying to outrun the sentimentality before it can catch up with him. Sandy bites her lip to keep from smiling, and slips into step beside him.

They walk in silence for some time, nothing but Pigsy’s distant panting bouncing off the close walls. Tripitaka catches up with them after a little while, struggling only a little on her short human legs, and for a few blessed minutes, it is all quiet and simple and almost — _almost_ — painless.

Then, seemingly just to banish the silence, Monkey turns to her, head cocked with casual curiosity, and says, “So. Any idea at all, what might be lurking in there?”

It’s a simple enough question. Understandable, too, all things considered.

But it is also very dangerous.

Sandy tries to shake it off, the big question and the hundred thousand little ones it sets off, chain reactions sparking inside of her, thoughts turning to water, to a maelstrom churning and whirling and screaming, an endless stream of sounds and voices she can’t make out, feelings and moments, senses she can’t touch, so much that she—

She stops. Tries to shut it off, but she can’t.

It is too late to pretend she didn’t hear the question. Too late to stop her mind clawing and scratching and scrabbling, searching for an answer that does not exist. Too late to stop it from falling apart when it finds there is nothing there.

Her legs buckle. She can’t stop that, either. She’s too busy fighting her mind, fighting back the whispers, the _screams_ , the chaos rising up in her again.

She falls. Lands awkwardly on the hard stone step, a jolt of pain that cracks her knees. The impact reverberates, noise and sensation all at once, that very specific nerve-jarring pain that comes with violent contact, with striking stone or being struck, or—

She doesn’t know.

But the sensation is so familiar, pain and pain and _pain_ , not in her knees but in her mind, her head, her everything.

Pain. Pain. _Pain_. 

And then, so much bigger, _fear_. Terror, so overpowering it drowns her.

And she grips her head between her hands, tries in vain to make it stop, and her throat seizes and spasms, choking on a name, a name she’s sure holds meaning but she can’t remember, can’t hold onto it, only knows that it is _important_ —

Four syllables.

No. Three syllables.

Short. Definitely.

Too young to be—

No. Too _old_ to be—

She doesn’t know. Can’t remember. Can’t—

Can’t.

A name. Hers, or someone else’s. Doesn’t matter, because she can’t remember that either. Can’t remember where she is or why, can’t remember the names of the shadows standing over her, the names of the voices inside her head, the name of—

Herself.

Can’t remember her own—

Can’t—

“Well, well, well. What have we here?”

And she looks up into a face she doesn’t recognise but is sure she knows. Pale, lineless skin, dark hair slicked back like water, and the longest lashes she’s ever seen.

Calm. Serene. Not human.

And then three other voices yell out at once:

“ _You_ —”

“Where did you—”

“ _How_ did you—”

She covers her ears. Too much noise, too much everything, and she can’t disentangle any one voice from the others. In some deep, well-hidden part of herself she knows the loudest ones are the good ones — _friends_ , she thinks, but she can’t remember why — but they are so sharp, so violent, and the other voice — _enemy_ , she’s sure — is so soft and so steady and so—

Long, strong fingers gripping her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face. Long lashes with pale, cold eyes hiding behind them. She sees her own face reflected for a second, and then—

“Be silent.”

“No!” Not her voice, but it rings in her head like maybe it’s a part of her anyway. “You get your filthy demonic hands off—”

“Be _silent_.”

And there it is, like the world has been dunked into water: _silence_ , pure and absolute, and she tries to sob her relief but her body is paralysed.

“Remain still.” And the air seems to bend to make that happen, to hold her in place, frozen, suspended. And then his hands are on her face, replacing her own, his long fingers as cold as anything she’s ever felt, and she does, she remains still because she has no other choice. “Do not panic. In a moment, you won’t feel a thing.”

And she is feeling so much, and she is so desperate for it to stop, that she never stops to wonder if it might not be a good thing when it does.

And it _does_.

And the relief is so profound, so overwhelming, that as the world begins to dissolve she thinks maybe she wouldn’t care if it stayed that way forever.

*

She wakes, a little later, in what might be the biggest bed in the world.

Big enough that it could probably hold five of her.

But there aren’t five of her. Only one. And that’s more than enough.

For a long, long moment, it’s all she can think about. The vastness of the bed, the smallness of her body, the impossible quiet inside her head. Everything around her is faint and indistinct; he can’t hear much of anything beyond her own breathing, and while a part of her can sense she’s not alone still she feels like she is. It takes a while, dizzy and disoriented as she is, for her to realise that her senses are dulled, that they haven’t fully woken up yet. And when they do—

When they do, it is a cacophony.

Three voices, two raised, and it is only the smallest comfort that she recognises them all, that she knows who they are and how they fit into her life. Only a small comfort, because they’re still so loud, and her head is so tired, and she’s not sure there is enough strength left in it to endure so much chaos.

“—don’t trust you!”

“That is your failing, not mine. Without me, your friend would likely be dead by now, or driven to madness, or trapped in some purgatory in between. Which, I assure you, would be no less unpleasant for any of you.”

“Yeah, yeah. You keep saying that. Then, when we ask what you did to her, you clam up and hide like the demon bastard you are.”

“Monkey.” _Tripitaka_. The name fills Sandy with comfort; it takes her a moment to remember why, but then she does and the world feels right. “Yelling won’t help anyone.”

“It’s making _me_ feel better.”

“I’m sure your friend will be delighted to hear that.”

The Shaman. Sandy remembers him from the breaking ground, Monkey’s ‘nightmare factory’, remembers what he did to them there, what he did to Monkey specifically.

She remembers, more recently, leaving the tavern to search for him. Tripitaka’s idea; she remembers how giddy she was, so sure that he would help. She remembers Monkey, too, cynical and suspicious and angry, remembers arriving at the palace, the endless climb to the top, remembers Monkey talking, remembers the way her mind started, once again, to split and shatter as she tried to think, and then—

And then _he_ was there.

Yes.

Pale face, long lashes, _him_.

She rolls over in the bed. Her body feels heavy and sluggish, and her stomach turns over quite violently when she moves. She is dreadfully unwell again, nausea in her body and pain in her head, but they’re both physical, tangible things. Normal, or as close to it as she ever gets.

Her mind feels better too. Quiet, in a way it hasn’t been since the last time she was here. When she touches her temples, tries to focus and concentrate and _think_ , she finds only silence.

It is a relief that brings her almost to the brink of tears.

Apparently the Shaman can sense her movements because he jabs a finger in her direction and barks, without even glancing her way, “Do _not_ try to sit up.”

Sandy freezes where she lies. It doesn’t take much effort to obey him; she’s not sure she could sit up, even if she did try, without her entire body staging a rebellion. She closes her eyes, lets the chaos break over her like the sea as Monkey and Tripitaka start yelling again. It is unbearable, but not entirely unwelcome.

“Sandy—”

“—about time you decided to—”

“—are you feeling—”

“—what that creep did to—”

“Be _silent_!”

And then he is by her side, seemingly without having moved at all. Sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into her face, seeming to pierce her mind and her soul just by looking at her. Sandy’s every instinct is yelling at her to resist, to struggle, but she is too weak and feels too sick to even try. Whatever happened, whatever he did, it seems that he is the reason her mind is finally, finally silent.

For that, she will lie as still as he wants.

She wets her lips, and tries to speak. “Where...?”

“The top of the palace.” Simple, straightforward. She appreciates that. “I’m sure you will recognise it well enough, once you are able to sit up. For now, though, remain still, and try to remain calm.”

“Mm.” The way she feels, she couldn’t do much else. “Yes.”

“You are unwell,” he explains, as if it needed to be said. Sandy may not have the quick wit of Monkey or the others, but even she could figure that part out by herself. “That is to say, your _mind_ is unwell. I could sense it as soon as you entered this space. Screaming. Suffering.” He narrows his eyes, but his expression doesn’t change. “What did they do to you, I wonder.”

On the other side of the room, Monkey snarls.

“The bigger question,” he grits out, “is what _you_ did to her.”

It is a blessing for all of them, Sandy thinks, that Tripitaka is by his side, holding him in place with one hand on his arm and the other gripping his hand. He’s not happy about it, but he defers to her just the same, staying still like her grip is a leash. Afraid of the crown sutra or simply bowing to their fearless leader, it’s hard to know, but so long as the end result is the same Sandy finds she doesn’t much care.

The Shaman glances over his shoulder for barely a moment, and when he speaks, his voice is dripping with derision.

“That, I can answer.” He curls his lip in a sneer, then turns rather pointedly back to Sandy. “Though I should point out that the question is hers to ask, not yours.”

“Yeah, well, she’s clearly not going to. And someone has to get some answers out of—”

“Monkey.” Sandy clenches her jaw, fighting to keep from snapping at him. Her head may be quieter, may even feel like it belongs to her again, but she is still much too sensitive to raised voices. “I appreciate your concern, but must it be so loud?”

He grunts, but doesn’t apologise. “If it gets him to start talking.”

“Your interrogations are not required for me to do that,” the Shaman says. He speaks softly, no word reaching above a whisper; demon or not, Sandy rather likes his voice. He’s looking at her, not at Monkey, and even though the question came from him, the answer is for her alone. “Your mind is damaged. Wounds, many years old but extensive, beginning to reopen. I have done what I can to slow the spread, but it must be properly treated.”

Sandy tries to take that in. Finds that she can’t. She swallows hard, breathless with fear, and whispers, “Damaged how?”

He sighs, soft but not frustrated. She might almost think it was a feint at sympathy, if demons were capable of such a thing.

“There are fractures,” he explains. “Pieces that don’t fit together as they should, pieces missing entirely. To coin an apt, if crude, metaphor, it is as though your mind was dropped from a great height during its developmental stages, shattered, and then put back together.” He draws his lips back into a sneer. “ _Poorly_.”

“That’d explain a few things,” Pigsy muses, mostly to himself. He’s sitting with his back to the door, looking around like he’s desperate for an escape. Whether it’s the Shaman himself making him uncomfortable or just being back at the palace, it’s hard to say. “Could’ve given it a mention back at the nightmare factory, though, if it’s really as bad as all that.”

“Why would I?” He sounds genuinely baffled. “You were my prisoners. Your well-being was not my concern; your usefulness was. Damaged or otherwise, she played the game with enthusiasm.” He chuckles wryly — no doubt he thinks that’s a compliment — then cuts another hard glance at Monkey. “In any event, I was preoccupied with one rather more... disagreeable.”

Monkey bares his teeth. “Trust me,” he says, sneering and scowling all at once, “you’ve not seen me ‘disagreeable’ yet.”

“Do cease your posturing, Monkey King. It is most tiresome.”

Monkey growls again, deeper this time, and Sandy suspects only Tripitaka’s hand on his arm is keeping him from charging across the room and taking the Shaman by the throat. He softens a bit when he looks down at the little monk though, and concedes to hold his peace for her sake.

“But why _now_?” Tripitaka asks, when she’s sure she has Monkey suitably reined in. “You make it sound like she’s been walking around with this... injury... for a very long time. But we’ve been travelling together for months now, and she’s been just fine until now.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘fine’,” Pigsy mutters. “I mean, she’s never been completely right, has she?”

Sandy flinches, but doesn’t argue. Can’t argue. Wouldn’t, even if she could. She knows what she is, and she knows just as well what she isn’t. What she’s never been, what she could never be.

“Not like this,” Tripitaka says, still speaking to the Shaman. “She’s never lost herself before. Never forgotten who we are, or who she is. If what you say is true, if she really is... damaged...” She says the word unsteadily, like a sour taste in her mouth or an unpleasant itch under her skin. “Why hasn’t something like this happened before?”

He ponders the question, mulling it over with gravity. “Undue stress, perhaps,” he suggests after a few moments. “Has she engaged recently with some unpleasant memories? Reexperienced some past pain?”

“No,” Monkey says, without hesitation.

Tripitaka flinches. “Yes.”

The others stare at her for a long, confused moment, then turn to Sandy. Sandy, being in no fit state to discuss it now, huddles a little further under the bedsheets. “Maybe?”

More than maybe, of course. She can feel the North Water hanging over her head, hers and Tripitaka’s both, and it throws dark shadows across her field of vision. But she doesn’t want to give that place a voice, not when she already feels vulnerable, not when she already has so many other uninvited voices echoing in her mind.

The Shaman nods, acknowledging the information, but doesn’t press it further. Sandy wonders if he really doesn’t care or if he’s secretly a little uncomfortable delving into the personal lives and feelings of his mortal enemies. She could hardly blame him if he was. She doesn’t like to see the beating hearts behind the foes she’s slain either. It’s messy enough, gods and demons and the hate between them, without bringing the soul into it as well.

After a beat, somewhat guarded, he says, “Then I would place the blame there.” He steeples his fingers, as though in thought. “The mind of a god is a complex, volatile thing, even when it is whole and healthy. When it’s not... _well_. Unwanted memories forced to the surface, pushing up through the cracks. Fractures, already weakened from a lifetime without care, growing wider, shards and broken pieces pressing and grating against each other like...”

He furrows his brow, fumbling for words. Tripitaka, always the one with an excess of them, whispers, “Like rock, worn down by friction or by the weather, until it shatters.”

The Shaman hums. “Excellent use of your monastic education,” he remarks dryly, then returns to the point at hand. “Re-living old pain can have unpleasant side-effects on the mind of a god. Even one that is intact and... mostly functional.” His eyes fall on Monkey again, rather pointedly, then he returns to Sandy. “In one like yours, those effects can be devastating.”

Monkey, growling at the thinly-veiled insult, softens a little at that. “He’s not wrong,” he concedes, gritting his teeth with the reluctance of having to admit it. “You all saw the way my stupid memories messed with me in his nightmare factory. And I’m _normal_.”

Sandy does not — will not — flinch again at that word.

“The concept is relative,” the Shaman says. For her sake or simply as another slight at Monkey, she doesn’t care; it loosens some of the pain in her chest. “But yes.”

Sandy swallows tries in vain to compose her thoughts. “Will I live?” she asks, because somehow that is less terrifying than this.

“For now.” He looks thoughtful, perhaps even a little sad. “I’ve patched up as much of the immediate damage as I could, given the urgency of the situation. A tourniquet, if you will, to stem the bleeding, but certainly nothing more effective than that.” The heaviness in his voice makes her insides clench. “Your mind will remain intact, for the moment. But the underlying problem must still be dealt with, and I would urge you to do it with haste.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Tripitaka blurts out, with her usual breathtaking optimism. “We were hoping you’d help us.”

The Shaman stares at her for a long moment. His lips twitch, like he’s fighting a smile, but the amusement doesn’t reach his eyes. He looks so much like Monkey when he’s trying just a little bit too hard to pretend he’s not feeling something; Sandy thinks it’s a shame that they are what they are, enemies by more than just their nature. Had their paths crossed in different circumstances, had one of them been born with the other’s blood, perhaps they could have been friends.

“Were you, now?” the Shaman murmurs at last. He raises one eyebrow, appraising Tripitaka. “Well. I do admire your courage in asking, if not your presumption in coming here. To enter this place uninvited after what you did to its former occupant... impolite would be an understatement.”

Sandy frowns. It is noticeable that he doesn’t mention Davari by name. Is he trying to distance himself from his former master, she wonders, or is it simply too painful to think about him? Where demons are involved, it could be either.

“We didn’t mean to intrude,” Tripitaka says.

“Yeah, we did.” Monkey’s eyes are living flames. “The Jade Mountain is the sanctum of the gods. Our kind. Not yours.”

Tripitaka shoots him a hard look. “Monkey...”

“No.” His wrath is not unjustified, Sandy thinks, but it does no kindness to her aching head to hear him vent it now. “Bad enough that you’re asking him for help in the first place. I don’t like that, but I get it. But this?” He crosses his arms. “No. No way. I’ll agree to a lot of things if it’ll help to make her brain stop glitching, but I’m not going to sit back and pretend that _demon_ has any right to be here. If anyone should apologise for defiling this place, it’s him.”

Tripitaka sighs. “I understand, Monkey. But later. Please?”

He growls, but weakens a little when he meets her gaze. Sandy knew he would; there’s not a living soul she’s ever met, human or god, who can resist Tripitaka’s eyes.

And perhaps no demon, either. Because for all his derision, the Shaman has not dismissed them out of hand. He glides to his feet, more graceful than anything Sandy has ever seen, and dusts down his clothes.

“Even if I were willing to help,” he says, very carefully, “I am not a natural healer. My talents, as I’m sure you recall, lie elsewhere.”

“Oh, we ‘recall’,” Monkey spits. “We ‘recall’ just fine.”

The Shaman, seeming to sense that nothing infuriates the Monkey King more than being ignored, does just that. “In any case, I will agree to nothing until I have recovered from my prior exertion. My power is not infinite, and it does not manifest from nowhere. I require some time to recuperate.” He eyes Sandy again, appraising her condition with a critical eye. “And your friend could stand to get some rest as well.”

“I’m fine,” Sandy mumbles, more out of stubbornness than truth.

“You will rest nonetheless. I will not see my hard work undone by your childish wilfulness.”

She doesn’t bother trying to argue. It was only a half-hearted protest, anyway, just to prove to herself that she still could. “Would you like your bed back?”

Monkey snarls, more feral than she’s ever heard him. “It is _not_ his bed.”

The Shaman chuckles, infuriatingly unoffended. “Indeed. And in any case, I have no desire to claim it at the moment. You should remain where you are.”

“I...” She ducks her head. “If you say so.”

“Your needs are more pressing,” he explains. “I will take mine elsewhere. With any luck, to a place with more privacy and fewer gods.” He wrinkles his nose, like the word is a foul smell, then turns to Tripitaka. “Do not disturb me unless she is unable to breathe.”

And so saying, he waves a hand and vanishes into thin air.

*

The others stay where they are, unwilling to approach her.

Monkey, especially, seems reticent. The anger drains out of him a little once the Shaman is gone, with no scapegoat to pour it on, and he becomes restless and uneasy. He avoids looking at her, but doesn’t seem to find it any less uncomfortable to look anywhere else either. It’s like every corner of this place, this room, is a razor-blade for him, a serrated knife-edge of unwanted memories and—

Past pain.

From what Sandy understands of his experience, this room was where the darkest of his memories took place. Where he watched his master die, where the world turned around and made him a fugitive. Where everything he knew and loved was destroyed, crumbling to dust under his hands.

It is also the place where he — _they_ — almost lost Tripitaka, the not-actually-a-monk who gave his life — all their lives — meaning again. Sandy understands that part, if not the other, more intimately than she’d ever want to admit. It still hurts her too, sitting up and looking around, seeing the open balcony, the steep drop below, and remembering that horrible, endless moment.

And now here they are, back here again, offering to place her life — maybe all their lives — into the hands of the one who did it, in the very room where it happened. Who wouldn’t feel angry and restless, faced with that?

“Don’t have to stay here, you know,” she says to him, low enough that he can pretend not to hear if that’s what he wants. “You can leave if you’re uncomfortable.”

“No.” He grimaces, wringing his hands. “I’m not leaving you at his mercy. And I’m not leaving this place until he leaves it too. This is _not_ his home, and I won’t let him keep it.”

“Monkey.” Tripitaka sounds utterly exhausted. Sandy is a little afraid to look at her, afraid to see the lines deepening along her young, pretty face, marks of worry and weariness, all entirely her fault. “He might be the only one who can help us. Is now really the time to be digging up old grudges?”

“Now? No.” His eyes flash, cold as ice. “ _Here_? Yes.”

“I mean, it’s a fair point,” Pigsy chimes in. “This place is sort of sacred. Even to those of us who weren’t good enough to see it with our own eyes. If he thinks he’s going to be moving in here now, just because Davari’s gone, I say we let Monkey go at him until he cries.”

It’s oddly confrontational coming from him; usually he’s the first to try and get out of a situation without conflict. Unfortunately, Sandy is too drained to question him further.

Her head feels heavy, a dull ache settling behind her eyes. It’s normal pain, she’s at least mostly sure, oddly comforting after so much intangible agony, but it’s still not pleasant, and she wishes they would all just stop talking about this and leave her alone. She didn’t expect to want to rest so desperately — when the Shaman ordered it, her blood ran cold, dreading nightmares or more lapses — but she is so tired now she can barely hold her head up.

“Can we at least wait until he fixes me?” she asks wearily. “Or, if not, could one of you put me out of my misery by throwing me over the balcony?” It startles her, how much she means it. “I would sooner a swift, peaceful end than this sort of madness.”

Monkey glares.

So does Tripitaka.

That is new, and unexpectedly painful.

“Sandy.” Her voice is hard. “Don’t even joke about that.”

Sandy bristles. “Wasn’t joking.”

It’s true, though it doesn’t seem to help. Tripitaka’s glare sharpens, eyes growing darker, like Sandy’s just said something unforgiveable.

“There’s nothing swift about plummeting into the abyss,” she grits out, with surprising ferocity. Sandy wonders if she’s thinking about her own near-death experience or the gods she watched who weren’t as lucky. “And nothing peaceful either.”

“Sorry.” And she is, if only for making Tripitaka feel badly. “I should have kept my thoughts inside.”

But she doesn’t say she shouldn’t have thought them in the first place.

Tripitaka studies her for a long, tense moment, then sighs and mutters, “Yeah.”

And then, silence.

Again.

Sandy closes her eyes, feels her breathing grow lighter as the world melts away, disappearing by choice for once. Blocks out the rustle of cloth as Tripitaka turns away from her, the shuffle and grunt as Monkey follows, the low murmurs of their voices as they step out together onto the balcony, no doubt bonding over their shared experience; Tripitaka is quiet and sort of melancholy, Monkey still sharp-edged and belligerent, and their voices clash unpleasantly in the back of Sandy’s mind.

Still smarting a little, she blocks them both out.

“Don’t take it personally.”

Pigsy. He hasn’t moved, but his voice always carries well. Sandy doesn’t open her eyes, but she lets her shoulders loosen just a little.

“Hard not to,” she says.

“Yeah, I know. But it’s not really about you.” He sounds like he truly believes it. Sandy wishes she had his conviction. “They’re just a little shaken up. Being back up here again. Working with a demon. Working with _that_ demon. The whole shebang.”

Sandy doesn’t know what a shebang is, and she doesn’t particularly care. “Shouldn’t have come back,” she mutters. “Shouldn’t have agreed to ask him for help. Could’ve handled it alone, what was happening to me.”

“Could you, though?” The derision is a quick, keen cut. “I mean, really?”

“If what he told me is true,” Sandy points out, “I’ve been doing it for a very long time.”

“Well.” He coughs, suddenly uneasy. A reflex reaction, she supposes, to accepting that a demon might be right. “I mean, sure, I guess.”

His tone says so much more than the vague, meaningless words. Sandy sighs. “You’re not comfortable either.”

He doesn’t answer. Not for a long, long time. Long enough that she cracks her eyes open a little bit and glances over to make sure he didn’t quietly keel over or sneak out of the room while she was speaking.

He did not. Still sitting where he was, unmoving. Back to the door, his rake propped up beside him, ready for action should it be required. His posture, slumped and lazy, says he doesn’t anticipate it, but there’s a darkness in his eyes that wasn’t there the last time she looked at him, and his shoulders are tight with the same restless discomfort that’s been clinging to Monkey ever since they left the tavern.

Watching her watch him, he grimaces and says, “Not _un_ comfortable. Not like them, anyway. This place... eh, it is what it is. If I avoided every place that’d ever caused me misery, I’d never go anywhere.”

A little self-deprecating, a little sober. It makes Sandy relax enough to ask, “Then what?”

He turns his face away; as he moves, the shadows seem to spread until they cover his whole face. “I’m just not a big fan of poking at old brain wounds,” he mutters. “That’s all.”

Sandy can’t blame him for that. Still, though...

“They started it.” She halfway expects them to start it again, just for the crime of thinking it; blessedly, they do not. “Would’ve happily kept living my life like I always have: not knowing anything, no reason to wonder or think about it, definitely no reason to start poking at them. They’re the ones who started growing teeth and claws inside my head. Made it hurt. Made it all start bleeding out of me. So now I have to deal with it.” Just saying the words makes the exhaustion surge again. “Not my choice, but theirs.”

“I get that. But memory has a way of...” His expression shifts, discomfort giving way to a soul-deep sorrow. “Just... while you’re up to your elbows in what you _were_ , maybe try and hold on to who you _are_?” He closes his eyes for a long, sad moment. “People change. We all do. Wouldn’t want you to lose sight of that.”

It’s thoughtful, if typically clumsy. Sandy tries to smile, though it makes her face ache like too long in the sun. “I know,” she says softly. “You did, yes?”

“Well.” He wrenches to his feet, as though propelled by some primal urgency. “Some days, maybe.”

And so saying, he turns around and walks straight out the door.

Just like that, without another word.

Sandy stares at the space where he just was. Empty, spectral, nothing there but the echo of his voice and the shadows on the wall where it met his back. Shadows crossing his face, too, as he left. So many shadows in this place, she thinks sadly, and so many dark corners for them to take root.

She looks around, takes in the sudden silence, the emptiness in a room that just yesterday was crackling with magic and conflict and _people_. Friends, enemies, and the ghosts of long-dead gods. It felt so alive then, even with the threat of death so heavy. Now, with Monkey and Tripitaka out on the balcony, with Pigsy and the Shaman gone to embrace their respective solitude, with just her, all alone in the world’s most enormous bed, it feels like a tomb, cluttered with bones and other people’s grief.

Strange, she thinks, how the sudden quiet in her own head can turn the silence outside into something so loud.

*

It is a long while, or at least it feels like one, before Tripitaka joins her.

Sandy does not sleep, though her body yearns for it with every fibre of its being, but she does rest. Tries to, at least, as best she can. With so much softness and space all around her, it is harder than it should be to relax. 

Even after last night, she’s still not accustomed to sleeping in a bed. She is certainly not used to a bed as large and luxurious as this one. Centuries ago it belonged to Monkey’s teacher, and then it fell unwittingly to Davari; she wonders what will become of it once they move on.

Another question without answers. There are so many of them lately. More and more, it seems, with every passing moment. This one, at least, is relatively simple; it doesn’t make her head split apart at its seams, doesn’t drive her to the brink of madness, so close she can taste it, so close she jolts upright, shaking and soaked in sweat, just from remembering the sensation. A soothing sort of question, and she contemplates it as her quiet mind drifts.

When Tripitaka does finally come to her, sitting down on the edge of the bed without waiting for an invitation, Sandy is calm and quiet, resting as she should be, gazing up at the ceiling and basking in how strange it is to be able to think and not fall to pieces.

“Hi.” Tripitaka’s voice is low, subdued. She looks down at her hands, not at Sandy. “How are you feeling?”

Sandy chuckles. “One day, Tripitaka, you will have to think of a new greeting.” She sits up a little, stretches her limbs, testing them for aches or pains, relieved to find none. “But for now, I suppose it will suffice. I’m well, I think.”

“Good.” She doesn’t look so well herself, though. She looks quite thoroughly miserable. Recent memories of this place, Sandy wonders, or something else? Difficult to tell when she holds her cards so close to her chest. “Do you feel up to talking?”

“Of course.” It is harder than it should be, holding a smile. “Apparently my mind is intact ‘for the moment’. Perhaps we’ll even get through an entire conversation before I—”

She stops.

Tripitaka’s face is crumpling, heartbroken, devastated, like Sandy has just reminded her of some unfathomable grief.

Sandy sighs. She hates herself for being too honest again, for letting the truth of the situation show instead of covering it up and pretending it’s not there. That’s what Monkey would do, she knows, or Pigsy; Tripitaka is more forthcoming sometimes, but even she keeps herself distant from the things that cause pain. Why else would she have been so defensive at the North Water? Why else would she have denied what was right in front of her, if not to protect herself?

Other people do not take kindly to the kind of truths that Sandy speaks without thinking. It has been this way for as long as she can remember. Certainly as long as she’s been travelling with Tripitaka and the others; she had such little human contact before, she can’t say for sure, but she doubts it would be any different with any other group of humans and gods.

And so, surrendering with a weary sigh, she says, “Should I not have said that either?”

“It’s fine.” The tension in her voice says it’s quite the opposite, though. “You just... sometimes you say things so _blithely_ , Sandy. So... detached. I know your memory isn’t working properly right now, but mine is. And when you say things like that, it makes me remember...”

She doesn’t finish. Doesn’t have to. Sandy’s memory might be flawed, but these things she remembers well enough.

“Sorry,” she says, for what feels like the hundredth time. “But I remember that too. In great detail. Remember watching you fall, the last time we were here. Remember watching Monkey jump after you. And I remember yesterday as well. Feeling my mind shatter. Losing myself and forgetting you and everything around me. All these things you think I’m detached from. All these things you think I’m blithe about. Those, I remember very well.”

It means a lot, being able to say that word, _remember_ , to hold it close, to make it true. Still, though, Tripitaka looks at her like she’s said something wrong.

“Then why?” she asks, with the quiet desperation of someone who truly wants to understand. “Why talk about them like they mean nothing?”

“I don’t mean to do that,” Sandy says. She doesn’t know how to explain the lack of experience, the lack of fundamental understanding that makes her speak the way she does, without thought, seemingly without empathy. “They don’t mean nothing. They mean a great deal. I just... expressing myself is difficult. Making myself understood...”

She sighs. Tripitaka does too.

“Yeah.” She sounds tired, and not especially sincere. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Sandy nods. “Neither of those things killed us, Tripitaka. We are still here. Still alive. And with so much lost in my mind, I don’t want to run away from the few things I do remember with any clarity.”

Unhappy though she is, Tripitaka doesn’t argue. “Yeah. Okay.”

But there is more to her unhappiness than just this.

Sandy has little talent for interpreting emotions in other people, but she knows Tripitaka well enough by now to recognise something heavier behind this particular misery. She has not been so rough with her since they journeyed together to the North Water, Tripitaka tense and angry, barking orders without substance, frequently losing her temper, so afraid of being exposed for what she was — a girl, not a boy, not a monk, not Tripitaka — that she lashed out with cruelty. Sandy didn’t understand it at the time, not until they arrived and those words fell from her mouth — “my baby _daughter_...” — and then of course she understood everything.

This feels much like that journey, like the sharpness in her voice is a shroud for something else, something that means a great deal to her, something she is desperately trying to pretend means nothing.

“Tripitaka.” It’s an effort to keep her voice soft; the syllables want to catch against the walls of her throat, become sharp and defensive, but she will not let them harm either one of them. “What is this really about?”

Fingers tangled in her lap, bottom lip caught between her teeth, Tripitaka glances back at the balcony. Monkey is still out there, staring down into the abyss beyond, shoulders hard, eyes unseeing; she watches him for a long moment, as though trying to reassure herself that he won’t overhear, that this truly is a private moment. Then, at last, she draws a deep, heavy breath and blurts out—

“It’s all my fault.”

Sandy blinks, following the line of her gaze and the train of her thoughts to the obvious conclusion. “Untrue,” she says slowly. “You were thrown. You didn’t jump. You had no control over what was done to you.”

Tripitaka turns away from the balcony, stares at her like she’s just said something ridiculous. “What are you talking about?”

“You...” It’s hardly the first time Sandy’s gotten something wrong; at this point, she merely shrugs. “You were upset when I mentioned being thrown from the balcony. And you and Monkey were out there for such a long time. I thought you were upset, traumatised by your near-death experience. I thought you wanted to chide me about that.”

“Of course not! That’s...” Still, there is a tremor to her voice, and she doesn’t finish the thought. “No, Sandy.”

“I see.” She doesn’t. The lie tastes sour on her tongue. “So, then, what?”

Another glance at the balcony. Another deep, shuddering breath.

“This thing that’s happening to you,” she says at last. “You heard what the Shaman said.”

“Mm, yes. Broken and put back together. Poorly, as he claims it.”

“No, not that.” Frustrated now, impatience chasing away the sorrow and strain on her face; she never looks more like a monk than when she’s losing patience. “Unpleasant memories. Past pain. Do you remember that part?”

Sandy nods, a bit annoyed by her tone. “I’m not _completely_ unable to function.”

“Right. Sorry.” But she’s still chasing her own thoughts, so the words ring hollow. “But what he said... that’s why it’s happening now. Because you made yourself remember. Made yourself relive it.”

“Ah.” She rolls over, feeling painfully exposed. “The North Water. You think this is happening to me because I told you about my childhood?”

“Um.” She seems a little embarrassed to hear it said so bluntly. “Yes?”

“No.” Flat, toneless; if she lets herself sound the way she feels, she worries that she won’t get the words out at all. “That’s absurd.”

“It’s what happened,” Tripitaka insists, as dogged as Monkey when she gets an idea in her head. “You told me... you... you relived the most terrible things to try and break through to me. You threw yourself into your past pain for me, and that—”

“No.”

“No?”

She sounds so small all of a sudden. Sandy steadies herself, pushes her head back against the pillow until she can feel the mattress underneath, until the almost-solidity grounds her. It is not pleasant, thinking back — _feeling_ back — and reshaping the truth to fit herself instead of Tripitaka. 

“You think it came out of nowhere?” she asks. “Me sharing my past with you like that? Do you think I simply pulled those memories out of thin air because nothing else had worked?”

It is laughable, of course, but when she tries to laugh it sounds more like a sob. Looking up, Tripitaka seems close to tears as well. “Didn’t you?”

“No.” It should go without saying. Apparently, it does not. “I shared it with you because it was already at the front of my thoughts. Because it was all I had been able to think about from the moment you explained why you’d brought us to that dreadful place, the moment you said you were looking for your _family_.” The word sticks like a bone in her throat, makes her choke. “Just because you didn’t know about it until I shared it with you... that makes no difference. My past pain was awake and hungry long before I said the words aloud.”

Tripitaka makes a strangled sound. “I was preoccupied. Distracted. And I thought you were upset for... other reasons.”

“All true. But that doesn’t make it your fault.” She is still afraid to reach too far inside herself, to press too hard on her fractured pieces of memory; even this, recent and fresh as it is, makes her head start to hurt again, and she doesn’t know how far she can trust the Shaman’s magic to hold it together. “My past pain, such as it was, had been tearing holes in my head for many hours by the time we talked about it. Assuming the Shaman spoke true, assuming that it really is the source of all this, the damage was already done. You did nothing but listen when I finally chose to give it a voice.”

“But you went there for _me_ ,” Tripitaka presses. “I brought you there in the first place.”

“You allowed me to accompany you. And with considerable reluctance, I should add.”

“That’s not...”

“Come now, Tripitaka. Let’s not pretend you wouldn’t have gone there alone if the choice had been yours. You didn’t want to risk exposing your true self to one of us.”

“I...” She sighs. “But you _were_ there for me. If I hadn’t gone...”

Sandy sits up a little, looks her in the eye as keenly as she can. “If you hadn’t gone, perhaps Davari would still be in power. Perhaps he’d have achieved immortality without your help, and we’d all be none the wiser until immortal demons started springing up at us from every corner.” She is too weak and too weary to smile, but for Tripitaka’s sake she makes an effort. “We could drown in ‘if’, Tripitaka, if we let ourselves.”

There is little argument to that, and Tripitaka doesn’t bother reaching for one. She looks at Sandy for a long moment, tears trembling behind her eyes, like she’s searching with everything she has in her for some other way to make this her fault, to carry some piece of the burden. Perhaps she thinks it’s a kindness, taking the blame, laying herself open as a scapegoat, twisting her bad decision until it’s the source of pain for more than just herself, until it becomes the source of every hurt the world has ever endured.

Sandy understands that impulse. Tripitaka has always been the type to carry heavier burdens than she needs to, and in this case her blind-sightedness did a great deal of injury to everyone, and to herself most of all. But things are never quite so simple in truth as they appear reflected in human eyes. She will do more harm than good if she tries to walk this path, and it is Sandy’s duty, no matter the state of her own mind or body, to make sure that does not happen.

Tripitaka’s breath is shaky, and when she speaks again her voice trembles like the moment before a lightning-strike. “I _really_ wish I’d listened to you.”

“So do I,” Sandy says bluntly. She tries not to think of the isolation, the rejection and pain and loss she felt in the lonely hours that followed, the seemingly endless journey from the North Water to the Jade Mountain, isolated and failed and lost. “But the past is past. I may be bound to mine, but you are not. If you can let yours go when it causes you pain, you should do so. Take it from someone who can’t.”

Tripitaka sighs, acknowledging the point without giving in to it. “It doesn’t seem fair,” she says softly. “That I get to tuck mine away in some dusty corner of my mind while yours is trying to kill you.”

“It is the way it is. You can’t change it, and neither can I. I can only endure it as best I can. And you...” Swallowing over a lump in her throat, she reaches up to cup Tripitaka’s cheek, to make contact and try to ground herself. “I don’t know that I could bear to watch you torture yourself over this. I don’t know that I could bear to be the cause of that. And I think...”

She stops. The moment hangs suspended, a knife-edge of intimacy, sharpened to a lethal point. Tripitaka is staring at her with wide, miserable eyes, guilt rippling through them like tears, like loss, like every terrible thing she’s ever seen or done.

“What?” The question is a whimper. “You think what?”

Sandy closes her eyes, turns away with her whole body.

It is hard enough to feel this way at all, harder still to say it, to say anything at all after talking about _that_ , about the first time in her life she hated herself for having spoken. She opened herself up then, memories or no memories, and walked away and left the pain of speaking behind, but she can’t do that now. Tripitaka is her friend, her anchor even in the worst moments, and she cannot leave her without losing the few fractured pieces of herself she still recognises.

“I think,” she says, so slowly it hurts. “I think I will need you. Whatever is lurking inside my mind... if the Shaman is to be believed, it’s terrible enough to have left it damaged, even all these years later. I don’t know that I can face something like that alone. And you... you tether me. You keep me present, help me to remember who I am. You’re my anchor, Tripitaka, you...” Her voice breaks. “ _You_. For as long as I can remember, your name has been the one thing I know to be true. I knew you before I met you. And I’m going to need you—”

She stops again, but not because she can’t finish.

Stops this time because that is all she has to say.

_I’m going to need you._

And she does. Has needed her — him, her, either, both — for as much of her life as she can remember with clarity.

_One day, a young monk named Tripitaka will appear..._

It’s all she had.

It’s all she _has_.

She shivers.

Not like she did when she lost herself, fierce spasms that seemed to possess her entire body; she shivers now like she’s cold, like she’s frozen, like the temperature is dropping all around her, ice wrapping its shackles around her neck. And she is intimately acquainted with both of those things, ice and shackles and sometimes both together, but she is not used to being so afraid of them. She’s not used to being lost, trapped inside her mind, her body, herself.

She _shivers_.

And Tripitaka leans in to wrap her small, strong arms around her, and Sandy doesn’t know when she climbed onto the bed, doesn’t know how she came to be so close, but there she is.

“You have me,” Tripitaka whispers. “However you need me. Whatever happens. Whatever you have to go through. I said I wouldn’t abandon you again, and I won’t. I just wish...”

“Don’t.” Sandy doesn’t recognise her own voice, it’s shaking so hard. “Don’t wish. Don’t feel guilty about things you’ll never change. Please, Tripitaka. Just be here. Just be...”

 _Just be_.

And Tripitaka holds her like she’s the most precious thing in the world, and whispers, over and over, “I am.”

*


	4. Chapter 4

*

She rests until evening.

No sleep, just rest. Eyes on the ceiling or on the wall or sometimes on Tripitaka, but always wide open. Afraid of what will happen if she lets herself lose consciousness, afraid of feeling her thoughts unravel again, afraid of losing what little piece of sanity the Shaman restored, of undoing his hard work. Afraid of waking up feeling rested and normal, only to find Tripitaka staring at her like she’s done something awful.

Not even a god can control what happens when they sleep. Sandy, having spent most of her life resisting madness, is more aware of this than most. She is close enough to that precipice already; she will not let herself fall over completely.

Tripitaka tries to encourage her a couple of times, without success.

“You slept well enough last night, didn’t you?”

“You told me I woke up screaming and didn’t know who you were.”

“Okay, yes. That did happen. But you felt better in the morning.”

Sandy sits up, then, arms folded, and refuses to lie back down again until Tripitaka lets the matter drop.

“In any case,” she grumbles, “nobody sleeps in the middle of the day.”

And that, as far as she’s concerned, is the end of that conversation.

Pigsy returns around mid-afternoon, weighed down with food. “Lunch,” he announces, with a grin nearly as broad as he is. “Or supper, I guess? Whichever. Point is, you idiots would all starve without me.”

“Not true,” Monkey says, sour-faced and sulky. “We just don’t think about food every minute of the day.”

His mood hasn’t improved very much. He isn’t brooding quite so obviously, but he’s restless and edgy, the way he often gets when he’s forced to stay in one place for more than a few minutes.

Tripitaka has tried a few times to talk him into going for a walk, just to clear his head, but he is no more eager to leave them at the Shaman’s mercies than Sandy is to expose herself to sleep. Between the two of them, they’ve been driving the poor human to the outer limits of her patience. Once, in a moment of particular frustration, she threatened to knock their heads together until one or the other saw stars or sense, insisting that they’re as stubborn and stupid as each other, and equally unaccepting of what’s best for them.

Neither one of them were inclined to argue, but they were no more inclined to surrender either. Which rather proved her point, she muttered, throwing up her hands.

Pigsy’s return brings some much-needed levity back to the room. He’s clearly still haunted by whatever ghosts have taken hold of him, but at least he’s got a little of his usual good humour back; the smile on his face seems effortless, though Sandy doubts it truly is, and there is genuine glee in the way he saves the smallest portion for Monkey.

“Lesson One,” he says with a pointed smirk. “Don’t bad-mouth the guy with the food.”

Monkey glares at him, and at his tiny portion, but refuses to rise to the bait.

They don’t talk much after that, and their usual back-and-forth is all but missing. None of Tripitaka’s out-loud musings while she tries to decide what’s best for everyone except herself, none of the half-hearted jibes from Monkey or Pigsy, barely coherent through mouthfuls of food. Nothing of what is normal and comfortable between them, and try as she might Sandy can’t figure out whether that’s the product of where they are or of what’s happening to her.

She hopes it’s the former, the Jade Mountain, the myriad things it means to each of them. Anything, even the most painful thing, so long as it’s not _her_. She’s spent so much of her life making other people uncomfortable; now she’s finally found a little corner of the world where she can feel safe — a family, if a peculiar one — the last thing she wants is to ruin it with something outside her control.

She rests a little more after they eat. Flat on her back, eyes heavy-lidded, still fighting sleep, she relishes the stillness of the ceiling above her, the walls around her, the room and everything in it. There’s no real reason to blame the ale now they’ve learned what the problem is, but still there’s a small part of her that keeps bracing for the floor to pitch and lurch, for the room to start spinning and her thoughts to start running away with her sanity.

She wonders if they’ll ever let her drink again after this, wonders if she’ll ever trust herself enough to want to. Even after she’s mended and well, after her mind and memories are the way they should be, when she is as close to normal as a creature like her can ever be, how long will they spend worrying and doubting, terrified that every little thing will cause another piece of her to break off and shatter?

She has been transformed by what she’s learned here, and she cannot return to what she was before she knew. Like the moment Tripitaka stepped up onto that dais to announce her secret truth and Sandy felt the world tilting on its axis: _her_ , not _him_. Everything she knew rearranged itself in that moment, twisting and revolving until it was something wholly new, her reality changed forever. Tripitaka is the same person she always was, but Sandy will never, ever see that boy monk again.

She will never see her own mind the same way either. Whatever happens now, whether the Shaman can mend the damage or not, every part of her has been made different by discovering the truth.

It is confusing and disorienting, and it is terrifying beyond words.

She is in the midst of such fathomless thoughts, suffocating with dizziness and existential paralysis, when the Shaman reappears.

That is, literally. Not through the door, but out of thin air.

He appears at the foot of the bed, not seeming to know or care whether he’s intruding; he still seems to think of the palace as his domain, inherited from his former master. It won’t be long, Sandy can tell, before Monkey’s patience snaps completely and he relieves him of that illusion, but for now he stands like a demon king before his throne, looking down at her like she’s just another one of his subjects, weak and in his thrall.

She’s not. Won’t be, not ever again. But he doesn’t need to hear that.

He’s wearing the same vacant, unseeing expression he always wears, at least on the surface, but there is a sombre sort of sternness tugging at the corners of his lips, a sort of warning that braces her for the inevitable unpleasantness before he even opens his mouth.

“You must school your emotions,” he tells her, bleak and cold. “If you wish to contain this long enough to be healed, you would be best advised to stay away from such troubling thoughts.”

“Not possible.” She locks eyes with him, lets him see that she’s not intimidated by him, that nothing can frighten her nearly as much as what’s going on inside her head. “Thinking doesn’t work that way.”

“She’s not wrong,” Pigsy points out, watching them with a sad, knowing look on his face. “Telling someone not to think about something is the surest way to make sure it’s the only bloody thing they _can_ think about.”

The Shaman does not roll his eyes, but he’s clearly struggling against the impulse. It’s sort of comforting, in a way; he is so ethereal so much of the time, like he somehow exists beyond the world, there is something almost humanising about those fleeting bursts of frustration, of impatience, of being less than wholly and completely composed. It will take much, much more than that for them to see him as anything more than what he is — a demon, and a dangerous one — but at least when he’s biting his tongue he looks like one that can be touched.

“Gods,” he mutters, like the word itself is an insult. “Such power in their minds, and such inexcusable weakness.” He shakes his head, as though shaking off the thought, then glowers back down at Sandy. “You must be more careful. If you are to survive long enough for me to put your mind back together, you must—”

“You mean you’ll help us?” Tripitaka blurts out, and instantly turns red.

He doesn’t glare, any more than he rolls his eyes, but his irritation is obvious, a thrum of energy that seems for a moment to consume his whole body. His posture doesn’t change, but he takes a moment to compose himself before deigning to reply.

“I am not _helping_ ,” he remarks acidly. “I am merely satisfying my own curiosity. Someone or something has broken this god’s mind almost beyond repair. That it endured this long before the damage reasserted itself is a testament to her fortitude, yes, but it does not answer the question of _why_. I would know what manner of creature — demon, god, or otherwise — possesses both the skill and the stupidity to do such a thing, and to what end.”

A thin excuse, Sandy thinks, but perhaps a necessary one if he is going to surrender himself to helping one of his mortal enemies. Sometimes, the truth is simply too bitter to swallow.

Tripitaka is frowning, though, like she’s trying to figure out whether to take the words at face value or try and dig a little deeper. Sandy clears her throat, cutting her off before she can attempt the latter and unwittingly cause more harm to everyone.

“Thank you,” she says to the Shaman. “I hope my broken mind and I can help satisfy your curiosity.”

Tripitaka frowns, but wisely keeps her mouth shut.

The Shaman acknowledges her silence, and Sandy’s words, with a curt nod. Not quite approving, but close enough.

“As I said,” he tells Sandy, “you must practice proper care for a wound like this. Your mind must be tended with absolute discipline. Intrusive thoughts banished before they can take root.”

A simple enough instruction, she supposes, but not so easy in practice. Especially not for someone like her.

“How?” she asks, feeling ashamed. “I’m no demon. And I’ve lived alone as long as I can remember. Never had a reason to send my thoughts away. They were my only companions, most of the time. Just me and them.”

“Clearly, that is not the case any more.” He glances around him, takes in the rest of them, the various measures of worry painted on their faces. “If you must dwell on your darker thoughts, do so by releasing them. Share them with one of your companions.” He draws his lips back into a sneer. “The human, ideally. Let us not spread this infection to your fellow weak-minded gods, hm?”

Monkey, already keeping his distance, takes a couple of hasty steps backwards. “Is that a thing that can happen?”

The Shaman sighs. Deep and heavy and, at least by his standards, quite dramatic. “No. Calm yourself, Monkey King. I was merely being... colourful.”

From his corner, Pigsy snorts. “Maybe skip the hyperbole next time, eh?” he offers. “You’ll never warm up to him by playing to his sense of humour. Mostly because he doesn’t have one.”

“I have a sense of humour,” Monkey grits out, shoulders tight. “Just not about _this_. Because this isn’t funny.”

“Wouldn’t say that,” Sandy muses, mostly to herself. “Anything can be amusing if you look at it right. Even this.” Her voice hitches, giving her away. “So amusing, I think I may cry.”

Tripitaka makes an anguished sound and reaches desperately for her hand. “Sandy,” she breathes, and squeezes as tight as a vice.

The Shaman, meanwhile, is massaging his temples. “Regardless,” he says, impatient. “A healthier outlet for your thoughts must be found if you are to manage them properly. If you are unable to quash them before they manifest, then dismiss them when they do by giving them a voice and thus casting them to the wind.” He grows sober, then, almost angry. “But do not, under any circumstances, let them linger in your mind. They will eat away at what little sanity remains there, aggravating your condition and wasting my time.”

He makes no attempt to hide which part of that he feels is the most important.

Sandy pretends not to notice. “I’ll do my best,” she says.

It is intimidating, though, when put so starkly. To share her thoughts with anyone is terrifying, and all the more so when it’s Tripitaka. They are twisted, crawling things, her thoughts, even when she is feeling well. No doubt the side-effect of a life lived in solitude and isolation in the cold and the dark, of hearing the dying screams of helpless creatures before she ever knew why. A lifetime of darkness, in the air and in her head, horrors and nightmares wrapping themselves around her like a shroud; sometimes it was the only warmth she would have for weeks. How is she supposed to expose all that to the air, to other people, to _Tripitaka_ —

Above her, the Shaman growls. “What did I just say?”

Sandy flushes, hot and ashamed. “I wasn’t... I mean, I didn’t mean to...”

“Enough! If you will not even _attempt_ to discipline yourself...”

And without asking permission, he forces himself into her personal space, presses his fingers to her temples, and digs in hard enough to hurt.

Sandy opens her mouth to cry out—

But before she can make a sound, her mind goes blank.

Empty. Completely. _Empty_.

She is aware of her body, its breath, its sudden stillness, aware of her spirit, hiding as it always does so deep that no-one will ever find it. Aware of her thoughts, too, but only dimly, like they’ve been drawn out of her and set on a shelf. She can’t think, can’t process any of herself, can’t—

_Nothing._

It is the strangest—

Sensation?

No.

Sensation is a distant, impossible thing, far out of her reach. Nothing like it, nothing even close. Only—

 _Emptiness_.

Yes.

No pain, no joy. No thought, at least not in any place she can touch or reach or comprehend. No awareness of what any of those things are, what they mean, whether or not she should miss them. Only the sound of her own heartbeat and a disjointed echo of voices around her, familiar but so far away.

“Get your hands off her right now—”

“Be _quiet_ —”

“Not this time, you filthy demonic—”

“Monkey, no!”

And then the _crack_ of violence, and—

And she _feels_ it.

Her mouth floods with the taste of blood, tangy but intangible, and then she’s falling, the ground rushing up, up, up, and it—

And the impact, violent and visceral, slams into the side of her face and shatters the emptiness like glass.

And then, in an explosion of colour and sense and raw physicality, it all comes flooding back.

Like bursting back to the surface from a dull, grey-tinted dream to find the real world too loud and too bright, she feels everything all at once. And she tries to say something, to give it a voice, an outlet, a _something_ , but the taste of blood is still there, too heavy to wrap her tongue around.

Above her, chaos. Madness, nothing like the maelstrom in her head. Yelling, anger, the threat of more violence, and—

“Foolish god! Do you have any idea what you could have done?”

“Do I look like I care?”

“Monkey, that’s enough!”

 _Tripitaka_.

Her voice, as always, a tether, a port in the never-ending storm. Sandy is dimly aware of contact, familiar fingers clutching her hand, a warm palm against her face.

“No. Not this time.” Monkey. His voice is deep and dangerous; rumbling like thunder, it fills the room, fills Sandy’s head until it’s ready to cave in. “We’re not in your little prison any more, _demon_. You don’t get to just put your hands on us any time you feel like it. You _ask_ before you touch her, or I’ll—”

“Yes?” Shaman. The blood in her mouth is his, Sandy realises, and so are some of her thoughts. She shakes her head to clear the stray echoes, and comes back to herself a bit. “This isn’t a game, you mindless simian. Would you sooner I sit idly by, waiting for permission, while your broken little friend thinks herself to death?”

Monkey flails, angry and visibly upset. “Please. That’s not even—”

“Oh, I assure you, it is.”

Sandy takes a steadying breath, deep enough to shake off the last of the numbness, the unnatural calm, the reverberating echo of the Shaman’s thoughts inside her. She stands, vision clearing to reveal him gingerly wiping blood from his mouth and Monkey standing chest-to-chest with him, fists clenched, itching to lash out again.

She moves carefully, cautiously, a little unsteady in her own body, and touches his shoulder.

“Monkey.” Her voice sounds strong. Good. “I appreciate you trying to protect me, but it’s not necessary. He is trying to help. At least, I believe he is. Let him do that in whatever way he thinks is most effective.” She tries not to think too hard about the way it felt, the violation of his hands on her face, his mind in her mind. “I promise you, I’m far less likely to break from his touch than from my own thoughts.”

The Shaman actually chuckles at that. “Mm. Common sense, at last.”

Tripitaka stands as well, slowly. “Are you okay?” she asks Sandy.

“Yes.” She doesn’t look at her, though, or at any of them. Eyes on the floor, hand on Monkey’s shoulder to ground her in the real world. “I was empty. Thought, emotion, everything just gone. Vanished. In light of what’s happening to me, I can’t say the sensation was wholly unpleasant.”

The Shaman grunts. “A necessity, I’m afraid, if you and I are to venture into your memories together. I will not throw myself into a maelstrom if I can help it. And since you are incapable of controlling it under your own power...” His expression shifts, twisting into something that resonates, a whisper from a moment long gone; looking up at him, Sandy feels like a child again. “Let us calm the seas before we set sail, hm?”

The metaphor is pointed, a bevelled blade sticking in her side, and it makes quick cuts inside her. For a moment, Sandy doesn’t know whether she wants to laugh or cry. She hangs suspended for a moment between the two, breathless, on the brink of a fresh wave of madness.

He watches her, observing silently, like this is some sort of test.

She’s not sure if she passes it, but she does not pass _out_. Given what happened the last few times she felt this way, it feels like a triumph. Even if it is only for herself.

She fumbles for Tripitaka’s hand. Her anchor, even in the roughest seas. Tripitaka holds on tight, summons a shaky smile; Sandy finds strength in the dark water of her eyes.

She turns back to the Shaman, nodding her readiness.

“Yes,” she says, with determination. “Let’s do that.”

*

By mutual agreement, Tripitaka is the only one who stays.

She doesn’t trust Monkey to hold his temper in check, and by his own admission neither does he. He agrees, albeit with a scowl and a few choice curses, to take a long walk and give them some privacy. The rest of the palace needs checking for demons anyway, he growls, then slams the door behind him so forcefully the hinges rattle.

Pigsy by contrast, doesn’t need telling twice. He’s pallid, queasy, and has the look of someone desperate for an excuse to get out of there. Apparently this really is a source of discomfort for him; as the one who’s been going through it, Sandy has no difficulty imagining what he might be so fearful of. It must be a nightmare of a thing, watching someone lose their mind and wonder _what if it was me?_

The Shaman prepares her carefully. Hands framing her face, fingers pressed to her temples, like before only with less urgency. He speaks to her this time, his voice a monotone, telling her what to do — and, far more significantly, what _not_ to do — as her thoughts seem to drain away into a dull void. It is a bit frightening, a bit comforting, a bit of both and neither. She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to feel, and it doesn’t really matter because she can’t feel anything anyway.

And then, when she is as hollow as a river run dry, empty and silent and very still, when the only thing she can feel is Tripitaka’s palm pressing down on her own, she hears her own voice ask, “What now?”

“Now?” He seems to contemplate the question like it’s something strange and abstract, like _she_ is something strange and abstract, a puzzle to be solved. “Now, we go inside. You will sift through your memories, and I will attempt to repair the damage.”

“Will it hurt?” Tripitaka asks, frowning uneasily. Her concern should be touching, Sandy is sure, but she doesn’t remember what ‘touching’ is supposed to feel like; she looks down at their hands and feels frozen. “I mean, will you be able to...”

“I know what I’m doing, if that’s your concern.” It doesn’t sound very reassuring. “As to whether it will hurt, I cannot answer that. It depends on the extent of the damage, the memories affected and, most of all, on how strong her mind is in the first place.”

Tripitaka squeezes Sandy’s hand. Sandy knows she must be holding it very tight but she barely feels it at all.

“Then she’ll be fine,” Tripitaka says, with absolutely faith. “She’s incredibly strong.”

“Indeed?” The Shaman’s lips twitch, but he’s not so quite cruel as to contradict her out loud. “Well. Let us hope so.”

He nudges her out of the way, then, with a brush of his hand, like she’s no more than a minor distraction. Sandy’s fingers clench of their own accord, like they feel cut off without the contact, but inside of herself she doesn’t feel anything. It is a strange thing, the absence of feeling, of sensation and emotion both; her chest is tight, her skin is cold, but she can’t process those things or what they mean. She feels suspended, like there is nothing around her but air, like she could fall and hit the ground and never even notice.

And then he’s touching her, catching the tangled threads of her hair between his fingers and cutting away a small lock. His touch is much, much gentler now than it was, almost reverent; Sandy wonders if it’s her he’s so mindful of, or simply the power of a god’s hair, the magic thrumming like a rhythm under his fingertips.

“Do no harm,” she whispers, frowning at the tuft of white. Her hair, her power. Her fault if it’s used it for evil purposes. “Do with me what you will, but do not use me for ill.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he says. Wry, insincere, and with a predator’s smile; still, somehow, she believes him. “Now, lie down. Make yourself comfortable. While we are inside your mind, your body will be helpless.” He looks to Tripitaka, and the smile sharpens until she’s squirming. “I trust you to watch over us both, little monk.”

Tripitaka does not look pleased about that, but she doesn’t complain. She throws her arms around Sandy’s neck as she moves to lie down, and whispers, too low for the Shaman to hear, “Be careful in there, okay?”

“Always, Tripitaka.”

And she closes her eyes, exhaling slowly as Tripitaka grudgingly lets her go. Strange, she thinks, how the pressure on her chest seems to get worse without her body pressing down on it. Strange, how she feels more claustrophobic alone and exposed in the great big massive bed than she did being held in place by thin arms and billowing robes.

“Keep your breathing even,” the Shaman tells her. His voice is distant, like there’s a fog seeping into the space between them. “As I showed you.”

She tries. It is harder when he touches her face again, when his cold fingers send chills all through her, but still she tries. Focuses on that and nothing else, the rise and fall of her chest, the spread of her ribs, motion and breath and motion and—

And the world begins to dissolve, the air growing thin, the dark growing darker, like a shadow passing over her face—

And she breathes, and the bed seems to fall out from under her, and she hangs there, paralysed and sort of flying, and then—

And then he is speaking to her again, voice low and lilting and completely indistinct, and she can’t make out the words, and her eyelashes are tickling her cheeks and his fingers are freezing on her temples and she—

And she hears, through the muddled murmur of his voice, through the whispers and words that don’t make sense, one word that _does_ :

“ _Remember_.”

*

Her eyes snap open, and she is home.

No. Not home. Not hers.

Not for many, many years.

Oh, but it was once.

A long time ago, when she was very young. When she believed she was human. When she believed she was _normal_. In another life, another world, another version of her lived here.

Tiny house. Much too small for such a large family. Children always underfoot, running around and making too much noise. Small wonder their mother had such a short temper. Small wonder she was the first one to—

The house dissolves. Vanishes, like it was never there. And then—

Then she’s inside.

No.

 _They’re_ inside.

In the kitchen. A pair of wide pale eyes gazing down from the top of the stairs. She remembers.

The Shaman is by her side, quiet and focused, looking around with a calm sort of detachment. The place means nothing to him, of course; he’s looking at something beyond what his eyes are telling him. Something deeper than the shaky foundations, higher than the slanted ceiling, something that creaks and cracks more loudly than the walls or the floor or—

“No, no,” he murmurs, waving a hand. “Too early, much too early.” He fixes Sandy with a disapproving look. “This part of your mind is still intact. You must—”

He stops, cut off by the sound of footsteps and voices approaching. Quick steps. Angry voices, growing louder. With a sinking stomach, Sandy remembers this.

“—knew there was something wrong with her.”

Her mother, voice as sharp as a gutting knife. Sandy feels the words go through her, piercing her chest like she’s hearing them for the very first time, like she can’t see her own eyes peering down from the top of the stairs. Even back then, she was a shadow; even back then, she knew how to hide.

She tries to hide now, too, to duck out of sight of the approaching voices, instinct turning her blood to ice. Doesn’t get a chance, though; the Shaman grips her arm before she can move, holding her firmly in place. 

“They cannot see us,” he says flatly.

Maybe not, but the urge to flee doesn’t fade. Sandy isn’t afraid of being seen; she just doesn’t want to go through this pain for a second time.

Her mother, a small tornado of a woman, is still ranting as she enters the kitchen.

“—hasn’t been right since you brought her back from that blasted trip.” As she so often does when she’s agitated or upset, her presence seems to suck the air out of the room. “Won’t eat, barely sleeps, hasn’t uttered a word in days. And now _this_.” She sighs, a low, dangerous rumble that always heralds thunder. All these years later, the sound still makes Sandy quake in her boots. “You know what it means.”

“What it _might_ mean.” Her father, ever more patient. Needed to be, to be a man of the sea. He would walk through a wall of fire if he had to, but not until he was convinced it was the only way. “Don’t you think we’d best be sure before—”

“What else could it be?” Quick-witted, vividly intelligent, filled to the brim with common sense; Sandy did _not_ take after her mother. “You heard what she said. She thinks the blasted fish are talking to her.” There’s no mockery to the words, only pain and anger and the most terrible grief. “She’s one of _them_ , or else she’s mad. Either way...”

And then her father sighs too, and she knows — as she was too young to really know then — that it’s all over.

“Suppose it does explain a few things,” he muses. “She’s always been odd. Scared of the boat, but not of the sea.” He shakes his head; Sandy doesn’t understand it now, any more than she did then, even as he goes on to explain. “Supposed to be the other way round. You expect a kid to be afraid of the sea, it’s bloody dangerous. The rest of ’em, they got it right. Fear the sea. Respect the boat, it’ll keep you safe. But she yowled louder when I dragged her out than she did when she fell in.”

He shakes his head. Watching, invisible, Sandy feels violated.

“Can we go?” she asks the Shaman. “Don’t want to see this.”

“The memory is your own,” he points out, with some kindness.

Looking up at the shadow on the stairs, big pale eyes growing wider in the dark, Sandy knows it’s true. Her younger self didn’t understand the nuance of what she was hearing, only that her parents were fighting about her; she remembers having the unsettling feeling that she’d done something awful, that she should have kept the truth to herself, but she didn’t know why until much, much later, until she was alone on the side of the road, crying and crying and crying.

Would it have been easier, she wonders, if she’d had the sense to know earlier? Would it have made the abandonment hurt less to know that it was coming? Would she have been—

The Shaman elbows her sharply, a warning to school her emotions. The walls seem to warp and crack in the second or two before she manages it, before she chases away the thousand questions, the wondering and the old, old hurt.

“Sorry.” She isn’t, really. Who wouldn’t feel too much in a place like this? “Difficult not to hurt when seeing this happen again.”

“No doubt you will see far worse before we are done here,” he reminds her gently. “Consider this good practice for what is yet to come.”

It’s not comforting. She holds herself adrift, wills her thoughts to get still, to grow calm as a lake in summer. Holds onto herself as tightly as she can, _calm_ and _numb_ and _empty_ , whispers those things over and over, until they become her new truth.

In front of them, her mother says, “You know what needs doing.”

She doesn’t know why she expects her father to protest. She already knows he won’t. She lived through it once already; watching it happen again won’t change anything.

Horror and dread shudder through his body, a ripple that touches her and makes her tremble, even across the years. Hope flickers briefly in her chest, desperate, hungry, _ravenous_... but then his face goes blank, like he’s worked it all through in his mind, reached the necessary conclusion, and let that be the end of it, like accepting the truth is all it takes for him to shut down his emotions completely.

Like he never had any to begin with.

It hurts like a blow, seeing it again, and seeing it so closely. Even knowing, even _remembering_...

Still, she wanted so desperately to believe.

“You could learn well from him,” the Shaman murmurs, like he truly thinks that’s a comfort right now. “Perfect composure. Absolute control of his emotions. He recognises when a task needs doing, sets aside his needless sentimentality, and makes himself ready. He will see it done, as he should, without faltering.”

Sandy wants to sob. The walls flicker and shimmer, creaking another threat, and the Shaman shoots her a sharp look.

“Trying,” she forces out, but it is hard, it is so much harder than she thought it would be. “I’ve never done this before.”

“On the contrary,” he retorts, dry but serious. “That we are here at all is evidence that you _have_ endured this before, at least once.”

Sandy closes her eyes. Tries to, anyway, but the image doesn’t fade; it barely even flickers, and the horrible, determined look on her father’s face fills her field of vision until that’s all she can see, until she’s a scared, lost little girl all over again.

“They’ll come for us,” he’s saying, as though trying to convince himself it’s true. “If they find out she’s...”

But he can’t seem to bring himself to say the word.

Strange, she thinks, with acid in her mouth; he had no difficulty saying it to her face later that night.

“If they find out,” her mother continues quietly, “they’ll do whatever it takes to get to her. They’ll destroy everything. Our home, our livelihood...” She casts a terrified glance up the stairs, unaware of the lurking shadow. “The _children_.”

Sandy’s stomach clenches. She bites down on her tongue, feeling wretched and small, and thinks, _that was me, I was one of your children too._

But they don’t hear her, and even if they could it wouldn’t matter. A memory is a memory, and it cannot be changed.

“Please,” she whispers to the Shaman. “Please, take us away from here. Anywhere, don’t care where. Just... please...”

He looks at her like she’s mad. Madder than he already knows she is. His expression mirrors the looks on her parents’ faces as they put their heads together, as they start to plan the easiest way to discard a child. Like he wants to do that as well, abandon her here in the recesses of her mind, leave her to work through her struggles all alone. And she knows it is dangerous to feel so strongly in here, knows she’s inviting a storm in the midst of a deadly sea, but the terror that washes over her is so powerful she can’t swallow it down.

“If you wish to leave,” the Shaman says at last, “simply do so.”

“How?” Her head is starting to hurt. It is disorienting, feeling a pain in her head when she’s supposed to be inside it herself. Trying to make sense of the sensations is like trying to bend reality; it makes her want to be sick. “I don’t know _how_.”

“It is your memory,” he says again, sounding bored. “And your mind. You are in complete control of where we go and what we see. Simply focus your thoughts on a different memory — ideally one more useful than this — and bring us there.” His lips thin. “It’s really very simple. That you are unable to do it instinctively is a testament to how weak your kind is.”

It is very difficult not to get angry at that. She settles for grinding her teeth, blinking back the sting in her eyes like it’s the difference between life and death. Perhaps, in here, it is.

“Are you _trying_ to make me lose control of my emotions?” she asks raggedly. “Because you’re doing a marvellous job of it.”

He sighs. “You are merely proving my point. Now, concentrate!”

She does. At least, she tries. Focuses her thoughts, her feelings—

Blinks, and suddenly she’s shivering in the middle of nowhere, watching as her father drives off towards the endless horizon. Alone, frightened, cold. The air is heavy with the sound of wailing.

Blinks again, then again, and—

And—

And suddenly she’s everywhere and nowhere all at once. Dark skies above her head, then a low ceiling, the thundering rhythm of pouring water, and all of it shot through with cracks and tears and ripples.

Hard floor, hard pillow, hard stone, a thousand sensations all around her but she can’t—

“ _Focus_!”

A candle, dim light, warm flame, hot wax sticking to her fingers—

An old book, the parchment faded and fragile, the letters blurring—

A voice in her ear, encouraging and affectionate and so, so kind—

Another voice, rough and sour and spitting venom—

A pinprick of pain, something sharp gleaming, a bead of blood—

Water, torrents of it, inside and outside and everywhere at once—

Voices, so many voices, all saying different things—

And the only one she recognises, rising high above all the rest, her own, screaming, screaming, _screaming_ —

She covers her ears, desperate to block it all out; she can feel herself shivering, shuddering, every muscle in her body seizing and spasming, and then her legs go out from under her—

And she falls—

And the world tilts and sways, spinning like it did when she was inebriated, only a thousand times worse, like it’s not real, like nothing is real, like _she_ isn’t real—

And she falls—

And everything dissolves—

And she falls—

And suddenly there is nothing under her, nothing around her or above her, nothing to catch or hold her—

And she falls and she falls and she—

*

— _lands_.

Hard, on her head.

On solid ground.

Still shivering.

Still—

“Sandy?”

Yes, that. Yes, she is. She’s sure of it. _Sandy_ , who she is.

She opens her mouth to say so, to claim her name and her mind, to claim _herself_ —

And her body, still seizing, promptly turns itself inside-out.

It blinds her, the force of it, eyes rolling back in her head until everything is white and fuzzy, until there is nothing but the terrible violence, the heaving of her stomach, the spasms in her shoulders, the splitting of her ribs.

It lasts a second, it lasts a lifetime, it leaves her breathless and burning up, empty on the inside and flayed on the outside, shaking and sweat-soaked, and even after it’s finished still the spasms seem to go on and on and on.

She rolls over when she’s finally able to move again, curls up on the floor and hugs her belly until the shuddering slows to a stop. She can feel the muscles clenching and twitching inside of her, can feel the empty space between her ribs and lungs fill to bursting over and over as she tries to find air. She can feel her blood flowing too hard and too fast, can feel the way it makes her head swim, the way it makes her dizzy. She can feel everything, and it is so, so much.

Somewhere above her, the Shaman coughs.

With a considerable force of will, Sandy lifts her head. Squints through tearing, half-blind eyes until she finds him. He looks just as terrible as she feels, perhaps even worse; he’s bracing with one hand against the nearest wall, wiping at his mouth with the other, and his face is as white as chalk.

Perhaps a little unkindly, the sight of him equally reduced makes her feel somewhat better. She’s spent so much of the last couple of days suffering and struggling alone, she’d almost forgotten that other people are as capable of it as she is. And in him, more than anyone else, it is a special comfort. She’s never met anyone, god or demon, quite as composed as the Shaman; if even _he_ is suffering from this, who would ever judge her for doing the same?

“This,” he croaks, when he is able to speak, “will not do at all.”

On the other side of the room, as far away from both of them as she can get without leaving, Tripitaka is staring at them both, face pale and eyes wide.

“What just happened?” she asks in a stricken, horrified squeak.

“Whatever I did,” Sandy says hoarsely, “I wholeheartedly apologise.”

Between the sour taste in her mouth and the spasms still wracking her insides, she means it with absolute sincerity.

The Shaman looks contemplative. Or possibly he’s just feeling nauseous, hard to tell for sure. His knuckles are white where he’s bracing his hand on the wall, and that coupled with the queasy expression still on his face makes him look surprisingly vulnerable. Sandy opens her mouth very carefully; she’s just about to offer another apology when he holds up a hand to silence her.

“No.” The word arcs through the air like her scythe, swift and sure, a deadly cut. “Unfathomable as it is, I believe this was not your fault.”

Sandy does not understand. “But... I had emotions...?”

It’s as close to coherent as she’s able to get right now.

“True enough. The lack of emotional control is something you must work on if you are to survive this. But what we just experienced...” He exhales, still shaky and visibly exhausted. “The mistake was mine. I vastly underestimated the extent of the damage, and overestimated my talents to fix it. This was... considerably more than I anticipated.”

“I...” Sandy wets her lips; they grow dry again instantly. “I see.”

He looks up at her, eyes dark with shadows. “I cannot mend you in this state.”

Horror bursts in her chest, a seizure not unlike the ones still wracking her stomach. Panic is not an emotion she’s accustomed to feeling in any real measure — at least, it wasn’t until this began, until her mind started running away to places she couldn’t follow — but it swells in her now like a living thing, a creature with bared teeth and claws, like the clenching inside her isn’t a spasm but a wound, like the panic is ripping her apart piece by piece until there’s nothing left but blood and hurt.

“Please,” she whispers, choking on it. “You _must_ help—”

“Do not tell me what I _must_ do,” he spits, furious. “Only one has ever earned that right, and your petty little human imprisoned him for all eternity. I will not take orders from your kind.”

“She didn’t mean it like that.” Overcoming her trepidation and discomfort, Tripitaka inches back to Sandy’s side. She looks her over briefly, head tilted in a soundless ‘are you okay?’, then returns her attention to the Shaman. “She’s just frightened.”

“A poor excuse for poor manners.” Still, seemingly against his better judgement, he loses a little of his ire. “There is not enough of your memory left intact. I cannot repair what isn’t there. And even if I were to attempt it, your feeble little mind could not endure the strain.”

Sandy starts to shiver again. She feels it like a distant thing, only half-aware, like her body doesn’t fully belong to her any more. It takes hold of her, sharp little tremors wrapping themselves around her limbs, her throat, cutting off her breathing and turning her vision fuzzy again. She’s dizzy, light-headed, and if it weren’t for Tripitaka rubbing her back, gentle pressure to keep her tethered to herself, she’s certain she’d pass out.

“What do I do?” Her voice is hoarse and strained; she feels like she’s shouting but it comes out in a whisper. “Please. What am I supposed to do?”

“Simply put...” He hesitates, like he’s not sure if it’s even possible to put such a thing simply. “We must reconstruct what was destroyed. Help your mind to piece together a functional memory. And from there...” He thins his lips, the pained grimace of someone who does not want to say what he’s about to say. “From there, perhaps we may try again.”

Small wonder if he’s less than eager to set himself up for that again. Sandy doesn’t want it either, and her sanity — perhaps even her life — hinges on it.

Listening attentively, Tripitaka’s palm flattens, growing still between Sandy’s shoulder blades. “So you’ll stay?” she asks, slow and very careful. “You’ll keep trying to help?”

“I do not concede defeat to anyone. Least of all a broken little god.”

He probably means that as an insult, no doubt to soothe his own ego, but Sandy is so relieved she can’t find it in her to care at all. He could call her anything he wanted, could do whatever he liked to her, and she would gladly take it. Anything, _anything_ , if only he will stay and try to help.

It is a sickening thing to feel. Sickening enough for a god to seek help from a demon in the first place — she has spent a long, long time coming to terms with what she is and what it means, but even she knows that much — but she is so desperate and so scared that she would willingly seek help from far worse places without a moment’s hesitation.

“Thank you,” she whispers, ragged with relief and fear.

“I neither require nor desire your gratitude,” he snaps. “Your co-operation would be infinitely more valuable, but it seems you are incapable of that. Thus, I will accept your silence.”

“I...” She swallows the words, clamps her mouth shut, nods. “Yes.”

Tripitaka pats her back one final time, then leans in to study her face.

“Can we have a moment,” she says to the Shaman, “in private?”

“Ah, yes. The inevitable need to ‘talk about your feelings’.” He looks vaguely annoyed, but not affronted. “As you wish.”

He waves a hand and vanishes into the ether, reappearing a fraction of a second later on the balcony. He leans against the rail, looking deeply drained, and gazes over the edge.

Watching him, Tripitaka says, “I think you’re wearing him out.”

Sandy doesn’t speak. She watches the Shaman’s silhouette as he leans further over the rail, peering down into the abyss below, the endless nothing framed by clouds. She wonders if he’s looking for Davari, if he’s hoping to find some glimpse of his former master out there in the great beyond. She knows very little of their relationship, but she saw enough in his eyes the last time they were here to know that the loss was a brutal blow.

She wonders if Monkey would look at him differently if he saw how similar they were: two misguided souls, both watching their masters’ final moment from a helpless distance.

Somehow, she doubts he’d appreciate the comparison. Too much pain, too much unpleasantness bonding the two of them together. If he is going to learn how to trust the Shaman, it will be a harder journey than simply uncovering a little common ground.

She shakes off the thought as Tripitaka rises to her feet, holding out a hand.

“Let’s get you some water,” she says.

For once, Sandy is not thirsty. But the sour taste in her mouth is making her want to retch, and for that alone she nods and lets Tripitaka help her to stand. Her legs are weak under her and she’s still rather light-headed, but moving is easy enough once she finds her balance.

She doesn’t say anything. Watches dizzily as Tripitaka rifles through their packs for a waterskin. Drinks until the skin is halfway drained, then upturns the rest over her head. Warm, not refreshing at all, but at least the droplets clinging to her now skin are clean and fresh, not stale sweat. She closes her eyes, lets the water drip from her hair, and breathes.

Tripitaka eases the empty skin out of her hand, replaces it with her own. “You’re still shaking,” she says in a low voice.

“Sorry.” She is, but she can’t seem to stop. “I don’t know how to...”

“It’s okay. It’s fine.” And she guides her down until they’re sitting again. “And it will be. You do know that, right? We’ll get you through this, and you’ll be fine. We’ll fix it, we’ll—”

“Yes.” She doesn’t know why the word feels so small, so insignificant. “Yes, that is what we do, isn’t it? Fix broken things.”

“You’re not broken, Sandy. No matter what the Shaman says. You’re just...” She flounders clumsily for a more appropriate word, wincing when she can’t find one. “I don’t know. But whatever you are, we’re going make it better. We’ll make you whole again, I promise.”

Sandy shakes her head. A small sniffling sound breaks out of her, and another, but she doesn’t cry. She wants to, but she doesn’t have the strength. Doesn’t have much of anything at all. She’s exhausted and sad and she feels so wrong inside, so dissonant. It seems there isn’t a part of her left that still works the way it should, so where would the tears come from?

“I thought...” she starts, then stops to sniffle again. “Thought I _was_ whole. A little bit mad, maybe, but only because I was alone for so long. Solitude and isolation, it can do awful things to your mind. But that was all. Being alone in the dark for years and years and years. That would make anyone a little bit mad, wouldn’t it?”

“I...” Tripitaka shakes her head, sighs sadly. “Yeah. I guess it would.”

Sandy wants to touch her, but she’s afraid. Of what, exactly, she couldn’t say, but the fear holds her down and keeps her trembling, so she presses her palms to the floor instead.

It’s not nearly as comforting.

“When you appeared,” she says, “I thought maybe I could be saved. Thought you could bring me back to the world, back from myself. Thought you could teach me how to walk in the light again, how talk to people, maybe how to become one. A person, a real person. Thought you could take me away from the thing I was, and make me into what I should have been.”

Tripitaka makes a strangled sound. “You _are_ what you should be,” she says. “Don’t let this ordeal make you think otherwise.”

“No.” The word rakes against the inside of her throat. “No, you weren’t there. Inside me. You weren’t, you couldn’t... it was _madness_ , Tripitaka, far beyond what I thought was there. Everything all at once, everything split and shattered, my thoughts and memories all torn into a thousand pieces. There was no order, no sense, nothing at all, only chaos and confusion and the sound of my own screams.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Tripitaka says. “But it doesn’t change you.”

“Yes, it does.” It is such a simple thing, but saying it feels deeply meaningful. “Everything I do and feel and think, everything I have _ever_ done or felt or thought... how am I supposed to know whether it’s really me, or the broken parts inside of me?”

It doesn’t come out right, and that is frustrating. She can’t express herself, can’t twist her thoughts into words, into sense, into coherence. She can’t speak like a normal person, like Tripitaka would... and now she will never know whether that’s simply the way she is or something that was taken from her, if it is a part of her, a product of her isolation, or a piece that was broken and ripped apart. She will never know if she might have once been able to speak with eloquence.

“Sandy.” Tripitaka’s voice is still low, compassion and urgency making it quake. “You’re not defined by what happened to you. Whatever it is, whatever wounds it inflicted. You’re not a different person because they’re inside your head and not on your skin. You’re still the same god I met in that sewer. You’re still the same god who poured her childhood out onto the ground to try and save me from my own stubborn stupidity.”

“No.” Her head aches. She doesn’t know any more, whether the pain is real or imagined, but she presses her hands to her temples anyway. “No, everything is different now. I thought I forgot things because I had no reason to remember them. Thought I was driven mad by the way I lived. But it’s not true. Loneliness didn’t drive me mad, isolation didn’t make me forget. I was always going to be like this, it was already done. No matter what I did, no matter how I lived my life, I could never have been anything else.”

“You don’t know that.” She sounds uncertain, though. “You don’t know what caused what. You don’t even know what caused this in the first place. But even if you did... Sandy, no-one is made by only one moment. However big that moment is, however terrible or destructive. You’re more than any one thing that happened to you. Your whole life, the parts that you _do_ remember, they’re just as much a part of what made you as any of _this_.”

Perhaps. But—

“All I remember is being mad. And lonely. And cold. And...” She shakes her head. Even trying to remember the parts of her life she does know causes pain now. “Nothing is the same as what it was. Everything means something else now.”

Tripitaka takes her face in her hands. Her palms are warm, her eyes as deep and dark as they always seem to be, swallowing the light and refracting it into something ethereal. Sandy spent many years wondering what they would look like, the eyes of the monk who would draw her back into the world; she never imagined they would look like this, never imagined they would make her feel the way they do. She looks at Tripitaka and longs with every part of her to be more than the wreck of a thing she is.

“Listen to me,” Tripitaka says. “You are who you are. You’re my companion, my friend, my...” Her hands tremble, and she pulls away, ducking her beautiful eyes out of sight. “You’re a part of my quest, Sandy. A part of my journey, and a part of my life. None of that would change, even if I’d known about this from the start. It wouldn’t matter. It _doesn’t_ matter.”

And she leans in, all the way in, and whispers something Sandy can’t make out, a secret pressed against her cheek in a sort-of breath, a sort-of kiss, sort of so many different things.

And Sandy turns her face away, ashamed and upset because there is no comfort in the moment, the contact, the words, because Tripitaka does not — _cannot_ — understand any of this. Because there are no words to take away this feeling, to balm it or soothe it or make it better.

She climbs to her feet, accustomed now to the way the world lurches beneath her, and she stumbles like a sleepwalker to the balcony, where the Shaman stands searching for his master.

And she doesn’t look back at the girl who used to be a boy, who could have been a monk, the girl-boy-monk who cannot possibly comprehend what it’s like to be rewritten from the inside.

 _It might not matter to you,_ she thinks, _but oh, it matters to me._

*

Outside, the Shaman is shivering too.

That is... unexpected.

It’s chilly, yes, but so far as Sandy is aware the Shaman has never shown any aversion to the weather. Raxion, yes, endlessly complaining about the cold, but never the Shaman. From what she’s seen of him up to now, he seems to exist on a plane of reality all his own, untouched by the physical world. He must be terribly weakened by their journey through her mind, she thinks, to let it affect him now.

It is such a peculiar sight, so thoroughly unsettling, that Sandy finds herself blurting out, without thinking, “Would you like a blanket?”

He starts a little, spine stiffening. Further proof that he is out of sorts; she’s never seen him show a reaction to anything before. Slowly, ever so slowly, he turns to face her, staring like she’s an insect come crawling out of the woodwork.

“Is that a serious question?”

“Thought it was.” She frowns. “You look cold.”

“I can assure you, I am not.”

“Oh.” She decides not to mention the way he’s still shivering. “Um. Sorry.”

He sighs, as loud as she’s ever heard him, as though surrendering any hope of a moment’s peace. “You have come to discuss our next move, I assume? Or has the little monk merely driven you to seek shelter from her endless prattling?”

“Don’t know.” True enough. She’s here because it is less unpleasant than being there. But she doesn’t know how to express that, and so she says, “Just needed some air.”

“Mm. Well, you can hardly be blamed for that. Your friends are... incessant.” His voice tightens a little on that word, like the moment before a wave breaks, the stillness of something held back. “I do not make a habit of fraternising with gods. Or humans, for that matter.” He exhales another sigh, and the tension falls away; a confession, like the wave, washing him clean. “It is... difficult.”

Sandy knows better than to draw attention to what he’s saying, the admission that perhaps he has weaknesses too, places where he is less than pristinely comfortable. She has spent enough time with Monkey over the last few months to know how to deflect.

“For all of us,” she says. “Monkey is upset because of what you did to him at the breaking ground, and angry for what you did to Tripitaka here.”

“Understandable, I suppose.” He chuckles. “And yet, for all of that, the monk is as quick to forgive and forget as if I’d never harmed a hair on her precious little head.”

“Tripitaka is very forgiving,” Sandy says quietly. The word sticks in her throat, and she doesn’t know why. “It’s an important part of who she is. Why she’s so...”

Trails off, feeling her face grow warm. The Shaman watches her, one brow raised, and smothers a wry smile.

“Peculiar,” he says. “But then, I suppose that is human nature. Their unpredictability is so often distasteful.”

“Not distasteful,” Sandy mumbles, only half-heartedly. “Just... difficult, sometimes, to make sense of it. Her.” She grimaces. “It.”

“Indeed.” He grunts, then grows a little more serious. “In any case, she will be a very useful asset in what is to come. Malleable, less resistant than a god. And of course, there is the matter of your feelings.”

Sandy blinks, a little thrown. “You think she can help me to control them?”

He _laughs_.

She’s never seen him do that before. Didn’t believe he was capable of it. Yet here he is, head thrown back with all the mirth in the world, like he’s not just endured the most terrible madness, like he hasn’t just seen first-hand how broken she is, how utterly ruined, like she didn’t nearly drag him down with her.

“No,” he says when he’s done. “Rather the opposite, in fact.”

“Don’t understand.”

Defensive. She’s accustomed to being stared at, laughed at, treated like the source of other people’s disgust or amusement, but it feels deeply unpleasant here, personal in a way it very rarely does. Perhaps because he’s a demon, or perhaps because she’s so dependent on him, because her sanity lies in his hands and all he sees is the punchline to a joke she’ll never understand.

“Truly,” he says, “your naiveté is mind-boggling.” He chuckles again, then composes himself. “One would almost think you lived your life underground, for the way you look at the world around you.”

That stings. “I _did_.”

“Ah.” This time, he doesn’t laugh. “Well. That would certainly explain it.”

She wants to cry, but will not give him the satisfaction of seeing it.

“I’m trying,” she says, and despite her best efforts her voice cracks.

To her surprise, he grows serious again, the mirth vanished as though it was never there. “Yes, yes. I’m sure you are. Poorly, yes, but what does one expect from a damaged god? Or from any god, for that matter.”

She’s not sure if the generalisation makes her feel better or worse, but she appreciates the effort to make her weaknesses less personal. And perhaps to him they’re not; a god is a god to a demon, just as a demon is a demon to a god.

So few of their kind — gods or demons or both — have the dubious honour that Sandy does, of spending so much of her life in both worlds. A god raised as a demon, told she was a demon, maybe even believing she was, for a time... she doubts he’ll ever understand the way she does, that the differences between them are not so great as he wants to believe.

She keeps that to herself, though. Just says, “Yes,” with the subdued melancholy of someone who doesn’t know what else to say.

He waves a dismissive hand, like he’s casting the thought over the balcony and into the abyss.

“As I was saying,” he presses on. “We must attempt to rebuild your missing memories. To do that, we will need to... cannibalise others.”

 _Cannibalise_.

The word strikes a strange nerve at the base of Sandy’s skull. Like a memory, only not. One that belongs to another her, perhaps, a version of her that might have been but never was. She shakes off the feeling, shuddering violently.

“How?” she asks instead, hoarse and shaky.

“With as little difficulty as possible, I hope.” He looks ponderous, though, like he’s not sure how to explain. “Significant moments are rarely experienced alone. There will be others who shared those moments with you, who will have retained their memories of events that are lost to you. Using my talents, I can guide you through their minds, their thoughts, their recollections. You will re-live your experiences through their eyes. If we are fortunate, and if your mind is strong enough, it can then use their memories to fill the holes in its own.”

Sandy understands perhaps three words of all that. “It can do that?”

He tilts his head, the barest flicker of a nod. “A god’s mind is a remarkable thing,” he says, with a sort of grudging fascination. “It can perform all manner of miracles, with only the slightest encouragement.”

“Remarkable,” she echoes numbly. “I thought we’d established that mine is remarkably broken.”

“Indeed. And this is where your precious human will prove her merit.” He watches her face, lips twitching, as though anticipating some deeper response than simple confusion. “It is a dangerous process, wandering the minds and memories of others, even at the best of times. For you, it will be much, much worse. Your mind is in no condition to keep itself grounded, to hold onto its own identity through the flood of others. Left to its own devices, it would tear itself apart, and whatever hapless fools we happen to be visiting.”

Sandy does not like the sound of that.

“Don’t want to hurt anyone,” she mumbles, but is too ashamed to add, _least of all me_. “Don’t want anyone to suffer.”

“Of course not. That would be most unfortunate.” He says it wryly, but his expression is still mostly serious. “The monk will be your tether. She will join us, and her presence will keep you grounded to yourself. Your feelings for her—”

Sandy whines her protest. “Don’t know that I’d call it _feelings_.”

“Oh, really?” He stares at her like she’s just tried to convince him the sky is green. “I have been inside your mind, little god, and I have heard the way it calls her name. Whether you are willing to admit the fact to yourself is no concern of mine, but your feelings are crucial.” He crosses his arms, as though waiting for another protest, then continues when it doesn’t come. “If there is one thing in the world capable of keeping you grounded and tethered, of allowing you to hold onto yourself even through the very worst... it is her.”

Sandy squirms, discomfited by his shrewdness. It is brutally accurate, so much that it almost feels invasive; she does not know how to respond to someone who has seen her most intimate thoughts, who can speak them back to her with such absolute detachment, as though her heart is just another simple tool.

“She is...” She forces herself to swallow, and not to flinch. “She is my anchor, yes. Has been for many years. Long before we ever met, she—”

“I have no interest in your history,” he says mildly. “What matters is your connection. That is what will keep you sane. If you are both strong, and if she is willing.”

Something in the way he says it — evasive, leaning heavy emphasis on ‘if’ — makes Sandy’s skin crawl. She glances back inside, sees Tripitaka busying herself with their supplies, a sad, sombre expression clouding her face. From so far away, she looks very small and very fragile, so unfathomably _human_. Sandy feels the broken thing inside of her like a boiling sea, roaring and wild, a violent monster half-starved, and her stomach knots at the thought of pulling Tripitaka down into such a nightmarish place.

She turns back to the Shaman. Takes a breath to steady herself, and asks in a trembling voice, “Will she be safe?”

His eyes gleam, as keen as the edge of her scythe.

“That,” he says with a smile, “is entirely up to you.”

And the knot in Sandy’s stomach tightens to a fist.

*


	5. Chapter 5

*

Tripitaka is unsettlingly agreeable.

“I’ll be anything you need,” she says, without even a moment’s hesitation. She keeps her eyes fixed on Sandy, clear and intense and so, so dark, even as she speaks mostly to the Shaman. “Whatever it takes to help her, I’ll do it.”

The Shaman tuts his disapproval. “I would suggest you spare more than a fraction of a second to consider this.” It’s not a suggestion. “You will be placing your sanity in her hands. Perhaps even your life. It is not a burden to be taken lightly.”

“I’m not taking it lightly.” Said with such devotion, such unwavering _faith_ , that Sandy almost wants to cry. “I’ve put my life in her hands dozens of times already. And I’ll do it a thousand times more before we finish our quest.”

Sandy doesn’t like the way she’s looking at her, doesn’t like seeing her own loyalty reflected back at her from someone else. To dedicate herself to someone else is simple; it has been a part of her for as long as she can remember. To adore and worship and devote herself completely, to love and protect a monk or a name, a boy or a girl, that is easy. But to be the subject of those things in return, to watch that same boy-girl-monk-name turn around and look at her with the same eyes... that is _devastating_. It makes her tremble down to her bones.

“A life is one thing,” she says, staring miserably at the floor. “But sanity is quite another.”

Pigsy, still keeping a distance, grunts. “Suppose you’d know.”

Not said with malice, at least she doesn’t think it is, but there’s a crude, calloused edge to his voice that isn’t usually there. Still, Sandy does not flinch. Whether he means it kindly or cruelly, it doesn’t matter; it is her truth and she will not hide from it.

“I would, yes.” She tries to sound rough too. Mostly just sounds tired. “Given the choice, I wouldn’t inflict this on anyone else. Not my most hated enemy, and certainly not my most cherished...”

She trails off, flushing hot.

The Shaman smothers a smile. “ _Indeed_.”

Tripitaka clears her throat.

“I understand the risks,” she says to them both. “I’ll still do whatever it takes. Happily, if it’ll stop her from having to go through this alone.”

Sandy wants to point out that she won’t be alone, no matter if Tripitaka is there or not, that the whole point of this is that she will be brutally and invasively _not_ -alone. The Shaman will be there, for a start, and even if he weren’t they will be surrounded by memories and echoes of people she knows or knew or might have known. It is about as far from _alone_ as she can possibly imagine, so much that it stops the breath in her chest, turns her tongue to stone when she tries to voice it.

Alone, she knows. Alone is familiar. Alone, after so many years enveloped in it, is almost comfortable. It is being safe, not being hated, not being the source of ridicule or violence or disappointment. Being alone, even completely, has never frightened her. But surrounded on all sides by _not_ -alone... that certainly does.

She can’t put any of that into words, though. She is ashamed of herself, ashamed of her fear, ashamed of the hell she’s putting them all through. She wants to crawl into a cold, dark corner and disappear, wants to hide from everything and everyone — and from Tripitaka, most of all — but she is so afraid of what will happen to her broken, ruined mind if she does. She can hide from anything in the world, anything she can see or hear or touch, but even she can’t hide from what’s inside.

She shudders, shrinking away from Tripitaka, from the Shaman, from everyone. Wraps her arms around herself, and says, “I’m sorry, for all of this.”

“No.” Tripitaka’s whole body seems to ignite, a firestorm of passion and protection. “No apologising. Not ever.”

“Not from you, anyway,” Monkey chimes in with a low growl. He’s keeping a distance too, just as sullen as Pigsy’s but more open. He’s never made any secret of his displeasure at being here. “But if your new demon friend feels like throwing out an apology for hijacking the sanctum of the gods, I’ll be happy to take it.”

The Shaman chuckles. “You will be waiting some time for that.”

“Fine by me.” He leans against the wall, arms crossed, smug and petulant in equal measure. “Time is something we gods have in abundance. Such a shame the same can’t be said for _your_ kind.”

Said in a way that implies ‘shame’ is the last thing he thinks it is.

Rather predictably, then, the Shaman doesn’t dignify that with a reply. Instead, he turns back to Sandy and the task at hand.

“You will need to find a suitable starting place,” he tells her. “A face from your past. Friend or enemy, it doesn’t matter. Someone who is likely to have been present at the point where your memories begin their dissolution, who we can use to delve further. Ideally, someone who is still alive.”

It is more than a little unsettling, the way he says ‘ideally’, as though death and decay would only be a minor inconvenience.

“I don’t want to revisit my family,” Sandy says, rather hastily. She doubts they would fall under the ‘still alive’ category anyway, but the idea of seeing them again, in any form, still makes her feel ill. “Going back to that moment once was painful enough. I can’t go back again, I can’t...”

”No.” He says it sharply, but she recognises something a little less keen in the way his shoulders slump. Hard to tell whether it’s his idea of compassion or whether he is as afraid as she is of going through that experience again. “Your memory of that moment is quite complete. There is no need to increase your distress, or mine, with further exposure to it.”

Frustration wells up in her chest, flooding her lungs until she can barely breathe. “But everything beyond that is broken. Only myself, alone, for many years. That’s all I have.”

“An unfortunate dilemma, I agree.” It sounds rather hollow, though, and not at all sincere. “But one I cannot help you with. It is down to you to to find a thread linking your present to your past. A face you recognise, but cannot recall why. A place you feel connected to, but don’t remember ever visiting. Or perhaps—”

“Monica.”

It is Tripitaka who says it, the name bursting out of her like an epiphany.

Sandy glances at her with a frown. Doesn’t need to ask — a wave of dizziness is already starting to sweep over her, a flicker of something intangible that says she’s right — but still she does.

“What about her?”

“Her name.” She’s speaking very slowly, like she’s piecing together her thoughts as she gives them voice. “You had a... you reacted violently to it. Twice, now. First when the bartender brought you breakfast and you thought she was her. And then afterwards, when I asked how you knew her. You almost... I had to hold onto you to bring you back. Do you remember?”

Sandy hunches her shoulders, defensive again at the implication that she might not, that she might need Tripitaka to hold her hand in this as well as everything else.

“Remember the present just fine,” she grits out. She doesn’t know why it bothers her so much, why it’s such a cut, but it is, and it takes a great deal of effort to unravel her temper and focus on the part that matters. “You think she might be able to help? Think she would agree to it?”

“If she thought she could, I know she would.”

Said with the same kind of absolute faith that glows in her eyes when she looks at Sandy sometimes, or at Monkey when he’s looking at something else.

The Shaman, meanwhile, has a thoughtful frown on his face. “The tavern owner,” he muses, almost to himself. “Indeed. Your familiarity with her at the breaking ground was... complex. A deeper association, buried and all but lost, would certainly go some way to explain why you were so willing, so _eager_ to be broken.”

“Stop using that word,” Tripitaka snaps, shifting not-at-all-surreptitiously back to Sandy’s side. “She’s not broken. She’s injured.”

“It is endearing, if utterly misguided, that you believe there is a difference.”

Sandy moves away from them both, struck on a visceral level by the edge in Tripitaka’s tone, the importance she seems to place on these words. Doesn’t want her close, doesn’t want anyone able to reach her, to look at her, to see into her private places. Space, solitude, not- _not_ -alone. She doesn’t want to be touched right now, least of all by the one whose touch is her anchor, the one who stubbornly refuses to understand why ‘broken’ is the right word after all.

“Don’t care what he calls it,” she mutters, pretending to speak to herself because it’s less intimidating than trying to contradict Tripitaka. “Just want it _fixed_.”

Tripitaka looks a little stung, dark eyes growing even darker. “Sandy...”

“Enough,” the Shaman interrupts, sharp but not really cruel. “Your preoccupation with semantics is pointless and unhelpful. All that matters is that the tavern owner will make an suitable starting point.”

Sandy’s breath stutters; she doesn’t know whether to be relieved or frightened. “She will?”

“Indeed so. Your connection to the place is strong, as I have already remarked, and it bodes doubly well that the monk is familiar with her as well. If she is comfortable, it will make tethering you a much simpler task.” He does not look at Tripitaka, but the praise that follows is for her alone: “An excellent choice.”

Tripitaka flushes just a little, but doesn’t respond.

They’re both looking at her, their faces a mirror of each other, but Sandy doesn’t know what to say. She keeps her eyes on the ground, her hands in her pockets, her head down, tries not to feel the weight of their gazes like a physical thing. Doesn’t want to think too much, about this or anything else. Doesn’t want to taste the syllables of Monica’s name on her tongue and find that it makes her feel safe or scared or sick, maybe even all three. Doesn’t trust herself to feel anything at all without another loss, another lapse, another moment where she fractures and forgets herself.

She is so afraid of thinking, of feeling, of using her mind at all.

_You decide_ , she thinks desperately. _You and him, you and her. You decide everything, you do all the thinking so I don’t have to, so I don’t think myself dead._

Thankfully, before either of them can try to press her for an opinion, Monkey takes the opportunity to voice his own. For once, his trademark lack of tact and patience is a blessed relief.

“Great.” He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet, clearly thrilled to have something to do, a place to pour his restlessness and frustration. “Finally, a plan of action. So let’s hit the road.”

“Tomorrow,” the Shaman says, with a firmness that broaches no dispute. “When those of us who need it are recuperated and the remainder are well rested.”

He is speaking for himself, Sandy can tell, rather more than the rest of them, even her. The others might think it hyperbole, and he’s certainly playing it that way, eyes on her like she’s the only one in distress, but she has seen the tremors in his hands and she knows that his exhaustion runs at least as deep as her own. Their aborted journey through her mind, such as it was, left a mark on him just as painful as the one it left on her, if not more so.

He does not offer her the bed again. Instead, he points at the door and instructs them in no uncertain terms to leave and not return until the morning.

Monkey, to no-one’s surprise, is livid.

He draws himself up to his full height, fists balled at his side, blocking the doorway with his broad shoulders, and says in a voice as hard as wrought iron, “If _we’re_ leaving, _you’re_ leaving.”

“Monkey.” Tripitaka sighs, laying a hand on his arm in a futile bid at soothing him. “This isn’t the time to make a stand. We’ll be back in the morning. You can argue about it then.”

Monkey shakes his head, shrugging out of her grip like it’s nothing at all. “There’s nothing to argue about,” he says hotly. “He’s not staying here. Not as long as I’m breathing. If I have to drag him out by the hair...”

“Calm yourself, Monkey King.” The Shaman. To all appearances he’s as toneless and steady as ever, but Sandy catches the way his eyes wander to the balcony, to the last resting place of his former master; the others may not notice the flicker of grief behind his eyes, but she does. “I have no intention of making a home for myself in your precious sanctum. By morning, we shall all be leaving this place anyway.”

“Better be,” Monkey snarls.

The Shaman ignores him, tone growing notable colder. “I merely require the use of a bed for one night to replenish my strength. Surely you would indulge me that, in gratitude for keeping your friend alive?”

Monkey growls. “Keep using her as a bargaining chip,” he says, dripping spite. “See where it gets you.”

“That’s enough,” Tripitaka snaps. She looks as tired as Sandy feels, dark smudges gathering beneath her eyes. ‘It’s been a really long day, and we’re all tired. Can’t we just call a truce until at least one person in the room is thinking clearly?”

“An excellent suggestion,” the Shaman breezes, looking rather smug at having the monk on his side; that certainly won’t endear him to Monkey, Sandy thinks uneasily. “You gods could learn a thing or two from your little human. If you were willing to set aside your arrogance, that is. Ah, but let’s not wish for the impossible...”

“I’ll show you ‘impossible’,” Monkey snarls, reaching for his hairpin-sized staff.

Tripitaka grips his arm a little harder, stopping him. “Monkey, please.”

The Shaman ignores them. Casting the moment aside with a wave of his hand, he fixes Sandy with a stern look. “You are to sleep _soundly_ , and without interruption. Do you understand me?”

She does, yes, but that doesn’t make it any easier to obey.

She is still afraid of sleeping, perhaps even more so now than she was before. Afraid of the nightmares that might be waiting, paralysed by the fear of losing control again, of waking up lost and confused and broken. Afraid, too, of waking in the morning, believing herself rested but unable to be sure, of not knowing whether she woke screaming in the night. Terrified beyond words of waking to find Tripitaka looking at her like a stranger, haunted by things Sandy doesn’t remember.

Sleep has never been a particularly close acquaintance to her — too much energy in her bones, too many enemies hungry for her blood, a thousand reasons to always have one eye open and one hand on her weapon — but now it has teeth; it bears down on her like a boot on her neck, a tangible threat, strangling and crushing her.

“I’ll try,” she says to the Shaman, without much conviction. “Can’t control whether I fall asleep or not. Not my fault if I’m not sleepy.”

“True enough.” He fixes her with a hard look. “But we both know that you are. Do not treat me like one of your kind. I am not a fool.”

Sandy doesn’t deny the deception, but she refuses to be ashamed. “Sleep is dangerous,” she says. “Terrible things happen when I sleep.”

“True enough.” It is comforting, if only a little, that he does not pretend this isn’t true, that even through his disdain he understands where her reticence comes from. “But I’m afraid it is also a necessity. What we are going to attempt would be dangerous enough if you were in your right mind. That you are not...” He shakes his head, lets the gesture speak for itself. “I will not introduce any more variables, especially when they can be so easily avoided. If you refuse to sleep when you clearly need it, I will wash my hands of you. You will not drag me into your madness simply because you are a child afraid of nightmares.”

“Not a _child_.”

His lips quirk. Not a smile — this is far too serious — but close enough. “Need I remind you that I have been inside your mind?”

There is no response to that, of course, so Sandy only scowls.

Tripitaka moves in a little closer; she squeezes her arm but wisely doesn’t say anything. The contact is a promise, wordless but powerful: _I will stay with you, I will keep you safe, I will wake you up if you start to scream_.

Sandy doubts the Shaman would approve of that — _without interruption, I said, you imbeciles!_ — but it takes just enough off the dread that she is able to muster a wan nod.

“Excellent,” the Shaman says, without enthusiasm. “Sleep, then, and return here in the morning.”

And with a final dramatic flourish, he turns his back on them all.

*

With nowhere else to go, they return to the tavern.

To the small room and the big bed (smaller, it seems, after the giant one at the palace), to leaving Monkey and Pigsy lounging at the bar, to Tripitaka sighing and begging them not to drink to excess this time. To too much room and not enough space, to Sandy almost choking on the mnemonic taste of ale on her tongue, to feeling uncomfortable and unsafe and deeply, breathlessly afraid.

To lying down and feeling her chest seize, to Tripitaka settling in beside her, to their bodies pressed together under the sheets, to a strong arm draped across her middle and warm breath like a lullaby against her ear. To everything she remembers from last night, only this time she’s not intoxicated, this time she knows that what feels wrong _is_ wrong.

And there is comfort in the closeness, in Tripitaka holding her and murmuring delirious half-promises as she drifts safely off to sleep. But there is claustrophobia, too, in being pinned down by someone so much smaller than she is, in the depthless, drowning dark, in the threat of sleep like a monster looming over her, taking up residence in the place behind her eyes where exhaustion makes everything burn.

She surrenders without consent, struggling and scrambling the whole way down, knowing even as she fights that it’s pointless, that it’s inevitable, that it’s—

_Over_.

She dreams that she’s a child again, pulled down under storm-tossed seas, balanced on the knife-edge between life and death, breathing and drowning and drowning and breathing; the world above screams and howls, pouring its rain and hurling its thunder, but she is _still_ , the arms of the ocean like a mother holding her close.

And then she dreams that she is alone, still young and still small, the world still throwing its thunder and its rain down on her head, and the skies are dark with storms and the road is dark too and everything is so impossibly _dark_ , and there is no stillness here, not in the water or anything else; there is only the rain plastering her hair to her face and the tears stinging in her eyes, no stillness, no mother’s arms around her, nothing to hold her close or keep her safe, nothing at all, just loneliness and pain and fear.

And then she dreams of _emptiness_ , nothing tangible, nothing at all, an endless void all around her, blue-black and hollow, no sky above and no ground below, only her and the endless sound of her own screams, over and over and over and—

And it is still dark when she wakes, bolting upright in the too-big too-small bed, a strangled echo of the same never-ending scream cascading through her, smothered and suffocating and _soundless_.

Tripitaka, deeply asleep and dead to the world, does not hear and does not stir.

Sandy lurches blindly out of bed, fumbling for purchase with one hand and clamping the other over her mouth. Can’t quite tell whether she’s trying to hold down the screams or the bile rising up from her stomach, but she manages to do both well enough. She falls to her knees on the far side of the room and crawls into the tightest, tiniest corner she can find, shaking and sobbing as silently as she can, overwhelmed by a primal, desperate need to hide but not knowing what from.

It is a long, long time before the feeling releases its hold on her. It clings, tangling itself around her in knots, squeezing tighter and tighter until she can’t breathe, until she’s sure she must have woken the whole tavern with her whimpers and gasps. And even now she can’t find a reason for it, can’t push past the _nothing_ to explain or define the screams, to make sense of where they came from or why they make her feel razed to the bone. They’re still there, deep down in her gut, trying to claw their way out, but when she tries to pierce the dark to find out _why_ , she finds nothing there at all.

She gets no more sleep that night.

And when Tripitaka stirs and wakes with the dawn, rested and groggy and oblivious, stretching her limbs and reaching for Sandy’s phantom body, when she sits up to find her instead in the darkest, most distant corner of the room, crouched and huddled like a wild, feral creature, the guilt on her face is a raw, heartbroken thing.

“I slept through something important,” she whispers, “didn’t I?”

Sandy shakes her head. Her teeth are chattering; she is freezing cold and utterly exhausted, and she’s not sure she trusts herself to speak.

The bed looks a little bigger now, with only Tripitaka in it. She’s fidgeting where she sits, seemingly unable to figure out whether it would be better to stay there and give Sandy some space or rush over to her side to try and ground her. She studies her closely, eyes narrowed with more than just the fading remnants of sleep, like she’s trying to figure out what happened, how important it was, and whether she needs to do anything.

So many questions running through her head, Sandy can see, but only one comes out.

“Nightmares?”

Sandy shakes her head. Not strictly true, but close enough for what she actually needs to know.

“Screaming.” Her voice is hoarse. “Woke up with it in my throat. Don’t know why.”

Tripitaka sighs, heavy but sort of gentle at the same time. Compassionate, maybe? Sandy still struggles sometimes with recognising that one.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Why would I do that?” Sincere question, though it comes out a little distorted. Talking is very difficult; every word seems to press against her lungs and her ribs. “Nothing you could have done about it.”

“I could have been there.” It is so earnest, so completely heartbroken, like she truly believes that alone would have made a difference. “If you’d had another episode... if you’d lost yourself again...”

“Didn’t happen.” She hunches her shoulders, defensive and upset. “I’m fine.”

“But you _could_ have.” She’s frightened, Sandy realises. Frightened for her and frightened of her. Of the thing she becomes when she loses herself, anyway. In Sandy’s mind, that’s the same thing. “And I wasn’t awake to bring you back. If you’d needed me...”

Her voice cracks, breathy with worry, and Sandy feels terrible. She wants to apologise, again, but she can’t, won’t. Wants to beg Tripitaka to stop caring so much, to stop looking at her like her pain and her fear matter, to stop feeling anything for her at all. Wants to go back to the way things used to be, before the North Water, before Tripitaka knew or cared about Sandy’s past or present, when all she saw was another god, another tool, another companion for her journey.

She wants to be better, if only so that Tripitaka can feel better as well. It is such a burden, being such a burden to others. And especially to Tripitaka, the one person in all the world she should never, ever be a burden to.

“Didn’t need you,” she says sharply. It’s not what she wants to say at all. “Was fine on my own. Always been fine on my own. Always will be.”

Tripitaka fidgets some more, for maybe another minute or so, then she clambers off the bed and scrambles over to Sandy’s side like she can’t help herself.

Uninvited, perhaps realising she’s not entirely welcome yet, she leaves a little space between them, just enough that Sandy isn’t scared to breathe, and she reads her body language well enough not to try and touch her.

“Sandy.” Her hands flutter in her lap, frustration and empathy battling it out inside her. She’s not very good at communication without contact, but she tries. “This isn’t something you can do all on your own. I know you want to, but you can’t. You’ll lose yourself, Sandy, and I—”

“It was one night.” Her voice rises, her temperature with it. “A few hours at most. And nothing happened.”

“But it _could_ have.” And suddenly she cannot help herself; she reaches in through the sacred space Sandy has taken for herself, takes her by the arms and holds on like she can’t tell which of the two of them is drowning and which is the lifeline. “I know you have this... this wounded-animal survival instinct thing, this primal need to run away and hide when you feel threatened or when you’re in pain. But you can’t do that now, you _can’t_. You heard what the Shaman said: you need me to ground you, to keep you tethered to yourself. You need me—”

“I know that!”

It explodes out of her, as violent as anything she’s ever done. Her fingers clench into iron-hard fists, and stay that way for a very long time.

Tripitaka lets go of her quickly, eyes suddenly wide. “Sandy...”

“I _know_.” Softer this time, though not for lack of temper. She is angry and tired, and she feels so raw it’s a wonder her skin has not peeled away. “I know that I need you, Tripitaka, just as I know that I need the Shaman. Whatever terrible things have happened to me, whatever nightmares my mind has been keeping hidden from the rest of me, whatever awful memories we are about to unlock, I know that you will be there with me through it all. Whether I want you or not.”

“You don’t want me?”

Sandy waves off the point, tries to make it unimportant, smaller than the massive, looming horror it really is.

“Doesn’t matter if I do or don’t.” She tries to sound cold, detached, but she mostly just sounds like she wants to cry. “Because you _have_ to be. Because I am broken—”

“You’re not—”

“Because I am _broken_.” Her voice doesn’t crack, even as her ribs squeeze her lungs until she can’t breathe. “Because I am broken and can’t fix myself. You will be there for everything. You, the Shaman, perhaps Monica, perhaps others, all inside my mind, all the time. Not a moment to myself, not a moment of solitude or privacy. And I will have no choice but to endure it.” She closes her eyes. Has to, or she won’t be able to finish. “Do you have any idea how invasive that is? How much of a violation for someone who has lived their entire life alone? How _terrifying_? Do you have any idea—”

She stops. Can’t breathe. Even with her eyes closed, it is too painful to try. 

And she cannot look Tripitaka in the eye, cannot plead for her arms around her or her voice in her ear, cannot want all the things that brought her comfort before they were forced upon her. And she can’t fathom not wanting it, but just the thought of not having a choice leaves her desperate beyond words to hide, hide, hide.

Sensing that she needs some space, Tripitaka inches back a little. Not enough — the whole room would not be enough right now — but a little. An effort, a gesture; it means a lot that she would try, even as the distance pushes her further away from her own comfort zone. Not being able to touch, not being able to use the contact to balance her words; they’ve travelled together long enough that Sandy knows that’s hard for her.

“I can only imagine,” Tripitaka says at last, with considerable effort, “what that must feel like.”

“No, I don’t think you can.” Sandy closes her eyes again, lets her fractured memory take her as far back as she dares. Just a few years, perhaps even less, but enough to remember what her life was like — what _she_ was like — before a monk with a sacred name crashed into her world. “For years upon years, I was utterly alone. Years upon years of isolation and solitude and...” She winces, unwilling to say ‘loneliness’. “So much of it that I truly believed _that_ was what drove me mad.”

Tripitaka turns her face away, grappling with the enormity of that, a wretchedness she will blessedly never know.

“And now this,” she whispers. "Humans and demons walking around freely in your head.”

Said softly, with genuine reverence. Maybe she can imagine, after all.

Sandy doesn’t meet her eye. Couldn’t, even if she wanted to. There are two parts of her at war with each other: the part that is scared of being not-alone, of being invaded and violated, unable to even think without the pressure of constant company, and the part that aches with every fibre of its being for Tripitaka, the girl and the monk, the name that was locked in her heart for all those years. The loneliness on one side, and on the other, the reason why it didn’t hurt so much. They’re so close that they graze each other like razors.

She draws her legs up, hugs them to her chest. “It was easier to need you,” she sighs, “before I needed to need you.”

Tripitaka chuckles. The sound warms the whole room, and perhaps Sandy a little bit too.

“That makes no sense,” she says. “And, I guess, a lot of sense.”

“Nothing inside me makes sense,” Sandy mutters, a confession lost to her knees. “I’m afraid of so many things now. And I’m not used to feeling that way. I don’t...” She swallows, still trying to smother the screams in her stomach. “Monkey said that we... him and me... that we’re not very good in situations we can’t point a weapon at. Not very good at having to depend on others to keep us safe and whole. And definitely not very good at being afraid of things.”

When she looks up, she finds Tripitaka smiling at her. Fondly, as soft and warm as her laughter, even from a distance she is bright and beautiful. Sandy feels intimidated and unworthy.

“You’re not very good at letting people in, either,” Tripitaka points out with quiet, honest affection. “Neither one of you.”

Sandy tries not to take that personally. “Before you,” she says, “everyone who tried was an enemy. Let someone get close enough to touch you, they put chains around your neck. Try to kill you or interrogate you, or—”

Stops, cutting off the words like a door slammed shut as her ears begin to ring.

Struggling against the tide of panic, she pulls in a deep breath and holds it as hard and as long as she can, willing the world to become steady, willing her thoughts and her mind to hold—

And of course Tripitaka is there in a heartbeat.

She floods her field of vision, gripping her hands like a vice, whispering her name over and over and over, doing everything she’s supposed to do, grounding her and tethering her and holding her mind together as if by some unknowable magic. And it is maddening, how good she is at that, how effective the contact that Sandy doesn’t want, the sound of her voice, the echo of her name, of dedication, _devotion_ , the way her presence makes her feel safe even as it scares her to death.

And this time, blessedly, it ends before it really begins, the moment gone and the pain dissolving with it. She is light-headed for a few minutes, queasy and disoriented, but nothing more. The loss of self — the ‘episode’ that Tripitaka was so worried about — does not come. She is safe, she is intact, she is herself.

It should be more of a relief than it is.

Tripitaka doesn’t let go of her hands, even after the tremors stop. “Are you okay?” she asks uneasily.

Sandy nods, feeling as shaky as Tripitaka looks. “I’d imagine this is your cue to say ‘I told you so’?”

“No.”

And she pulls her in and holds her until Sandy feels crushed and protected at the same time, suffocated by her body and smothered by her warmth, surrounded by the beating of her heart, the outpouring of loud worry and quiet love.

Sandy wants to push her away, wants to resist the contact and the closeness, resist everything all at once, but she is afraid and she is dizzy and she feels so unwell; she wants so desperately to be true to her word — _‘I’ve always been fine on my own’_ — but she is not, and she cannot do anything, least of all resist the warmth and the pull and the sanctuary of Tripitaka’s arms.

“I hate that this is happening to you,” Tripitaka says, and her breath burns against Sandy’s throat, her pulse. “I feel so helpless.”

Sandy laughs at that, a ragged sob of a laugh that twists and tangles around the screams in her stomach until she can’t distinguish one from the other, until she can’t pick apart the parts of her that are _her_ from the parts that are broken and corrupted and wrong.

“ _You_ feel helpless?” she rasps. “How do you suppose _I_ feel?”

For once, perhaps for the first time, Tripitaka has no answer.

*

By the time they get downstairs, Monkey and Pigsy are already waiting.

They’re seated together at a small, out-of-the-way table, weighted down with various breakfast foods. Sandy’s appetite is meagre at the best of times — has to be, to live underground like a scavenger, as she has for so long — and a poor night’s sleep and poor morning’s conversation have ensured that it’s even smaller now than usual. Still, keeping her mouth full means not having to talk, and that is more encouraging than any hopeful look or eager smile Tripitaka has in her arsenal.

Monkey, of course, is helping himself to whatever he can reach, relishing every bite like he hasn’t eaten anything in a month. No doubt he appreciates the enforced quiet as much as she does, but Sandy rather doubts that’s his sole motivation; the tales of the Monkey King’s insatiable appetites are well known, and in the few months they’ve been travelling together Sandy and the others have learned many times that they were not exaggerated.

Pigsy, meanwhile, is not eating anything at all.

This is not only worrying: it is unprecedented.

Monkey glances up as they approach the table. He locks eyes with them for maybe a fraction of a second, mumbles an incoherent greeting through a mouthful of scrambled eggs, then returns his attention to his plate.

Pigsy, gazing vacantly at nothing in particular, doesn’t seem to notice them at all until Tripitaka sits herself down next to him, elbows him in the ribs and says, with just a hint of concern, “Not hungry?”

He starts, jolting the table and making it shake, then looks around like he has no idea where he is or how he ended up there. “Eh?”

Tripitaka blinks, concern overriding her playfulness. “Breakfast. Plenty of it. But you’re not eating.”

“Hm?” He looks down at the spread, blinking like he’s just seeing it for the first time. “Now, where did all that come from?”

“Been here the whole time,” Monkey says, with his mouth full. “What’s up with you this morning, anyway? You look even worse than _her_.” He cocks his head at Sandy, looks at her face for maybe half a second, then adds, “Uh, no offense.”

“None taken,” she lies.

He grunts, no doubt sensing the deception but unwilling to apologise further. “You sleep good?”

“Oh, yes. Very peacefully.”

She thinks she’s saying it ironically, with a hefty weight of sarcasm, but he takes the words at face value, shrugging and patting her shoulder with an awkward “Good to hear it,” then dives back into his breakfast.

Sandy shrugs too, and follows suit, albeit with a little more restraint. She’s not hungry, but eating was one of the few things that made her feel better yesterday, and the scent of strong vegetables and stronger spices is as much of a comfort this morning as it was then. It warms her, breathing in the aroma of hot broth, touching the spoon to her lips, and though she can’t explain why, she finds she doesn’t mind so much; it is the only thing, other than Tripitaka, that does.

Tripitaka is still studying Pigsy, her frown deepening with every moment he doesn’t eat.

“I’m guessing you didn’t,” she says to him. “Sleep well, I mean. You look like you’re barely awake now.”

“Nah, I’m good.” He takes a half-hearted bite out of something so well cooked it looks charred, then makes a face and pushes it aside. “Just, uh... thinking.”

“Anything you’d like to share with the rest of us?”

Sandy smiles. First time today; it is deeply comforting to remember that she’s still capable of such a thing. Feels good, not being the only one Tripitaka is worried about, not being the only one she’s looking at. Feels good, too, that Monkey can mumble some casual greeting then go back to his breakfast, ignoring her like there was never anything wrong at all.

Doesn’t feel so good, the strange, distracted way Pigsy is looking around him, but it’s definitely good that he’s the main focus of Tripitaka’s attention instead of her.

Pigsy is not nearly so happy about that. For a moment or two, it looks like he’s going to try to deflect. Shrug, find his usual careless grin, and insist he’s just not woken up properly. Easy excuse, believable. Especially coming from him; he’s always the least awake of them all.

He doesn’t deflect, though, and he doesn’t make the easy, believable excuse. That’s both a comfort and a concern; Sandy appreciates the way he’s keeping the attention off her, but even she is a little worried now. Pigsy is so seldom serious, so rarely affected by anything at all, that it is startling to see him bothered by something nameless.

After a long, tense moment, he sighs and says, “You’re not going to like it.”

He’s talking to Tripitaka but he’s looking rather pointedly at Sandy.

Sandy shivers feeling suddenly very cold. “She won’t, or I won’t?”

“Uh.” He looks around the table, then clears his throat. “None of you, actually.”

“Great,” Monkey snorts, more amused than concerned and still not willing to look up from his breakfast. “We can all be annoyed at you together. It’ll be way more fun than collectively worrying about her damaged brains.”

Tripitaka, as terse and serious as ever, glowers at him. “Monkey...”

“He’s right,” Sandy says quietly. “Don’t yell at him for being right.”

Monkey flashes her a quick grin, equal parts smugness and sincerity, then turns his attention back to Pigsy.

“Well?” he presses, impatience burning hot. “Spit it out, already. I don’t want my breakfast getting cold.”

Pigsy grimaces. It’s not often he gets uncomfortable when other people are looking at him, but he definitely looks that way now; the expression on his face matches perfectly with the sinking feeling Sandy gets in her belly and her bones when people start to stare at her, when her nerves start to seize up, bracing for an attack that may never come.

“Okay,” he says, breathing slowly, like he’s about to confess a terrible crime. “Okay, so... we’re off to speak to Monica, right? All the way to Palawa so we can have a chat with a barkeep?”

“Not just a chat,” Sandy mutters sourly. “Wouldn’t mind a chat.”

“And she’s not just a barkeep either,” Tripitaka throws in. “She’s the life and soul of that village. You should know that better than anyone.”

The reminder seems to make him even more uncomfortable. “Right, right. Yeah. Sorry. Probably taken on the role of mayor now, right? Hole in the power structure and all.” He clears his throat, stopping the thread before it takes them too far off-course, or possibly before Monkey loses his patience and does it for him. “Anyway. I was, uh, thinking... since we’re headed that way anyway, would it be okay to... uh, that is...”

The last thread of Monkey’s patience snaps, almost audibly. “Spit it out, will you?”

“Right.” He closes his eyes, shoulders slumped, like a condemned man approaching the gallows. “I’d like to take on an extra passenger.”

Tripitaka stares; clearly, this was the last thing in the world she was expecting.

“An extra _what_?” she splutters, like he’s just asked if they wouldn’t mind taking the scenic route. She glances at Sandy, a not-so-subtle reminder of the seriousness of the situation, then adds in a tight voice, “This isn’t a road trip, Pigsy, it’s a medical emergency.”

“Yeah, I know. I know.” The shadows under his eyes say it’s true, despite his behaviour. “But it’s kind of important. To me, that is. I mean...”

Tripitaka’s eye twitches, like she’s not sure whether to be bemused or just confused. Sandy understands that well enough; she has no idea what Pigsy’s talking about or why it seems to matter so much, but the look on his face makes it quite clear that she won’t like it once she’s figured it out. In any case, she’s used to being the last person in the room to grasp new information, and all the more so now, with so little of her mind still in one piece.

Monkey, to everyone’s surprise, figures it out instantly, and his expression turns from mild irritation to rage in the blink of an eye.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” He shoves back his chair and pushes to his feet, looming over the table like a stormcloud spitting thunder. “We’re about to trek halfway across the continent, in the company of a demon, and you want to invite another one?”

For a split-second, Tripitaka looks even more confused.

Then her eyes grow clear. Then they get very, very hard.

“ _Locke_?” she splutters. “You want us to bring _Locke_?”

Pigsy looks ashamed and upset. “I did say you weren’t going to like it,” he mumbles.

“Understatement,” Sandy says quietly, then ducks her head when the others turn to look at her.

“Right. Yeah, I know. But if you’d just hear me out—”

“No.” Monkey, putting his foot down a little too literally. He’s so angry he almost stomps clean through the floor. “No _way_. I’ve had enough of you idiots telling me to trust demons. You think just because Davari’s gone, they’re suddenly all toothless and friendly? You think they wouldn’t slaughter us in our sleep the second they got a chance?” He shakes his head, stomping his foot once more for good measure. “Bad enough, bringing one demon who’s tried to kill us. Two is painting a target on our chests and saying ‘stab here’.”

Pigsy makes a strangled sound, like he wants to laugh but can’t.

Tripitaka, meanwhile, is chewing her lip. For all her disbelief, Sandy notes that she hasn’t said ‘no’ yet.

Not surprising, really. It is in her nature to hear out both sides of every argument, to at least try and understand where everyone is coming from before making a decision. She may not be a monk in truth, but she has the heart and soul of one, the softness and the empathy that could carry her forever. From Sandy’s experience with the Scholar and his fellow monks, it is both a blessing and a curse. Kindness is a beautiful thing, more beautiful than anything else she’s ever seen or known or touched, but it is so easily taken advantage of.

At long last, reluctant but determined, Tripitaka says, “Why?”

Pigsy flinches, his whole body reeling like he’s just been struck a terrible blow.

“A few reasons,” he says, guarded and a little too careful. “Some, I’d like to keep to myself. Others...” He shrugs. “She lorded it over that village for a very long time. Now we have her, it’s only right that they be the ones to decide her fate.”

Monkey grunts, but doesn’t stop his foot again. “ _Now_ you care about doing the right thing?”

“Yeah.” He takes the implied insult without resistance. “Now I do.”

“Lousy timing.” Folding his arms across his chest, he sits back down. “I vote ‘no way’.”

Tripitaka looks conflicted. This is unsurprising as well; it always pains her when she has to choose sides, one of her friends over another, and never more than when the answer isn’t simple.

It’s even less surprising, then, when she demurs, turning to Sandy with wide, apologetic eyes.

“It’s your trip,” she says carefully. “What do you think?”

Sandy winces, uncomfortable in more than just being asked. She spent too long living under Locke’s iron rule to want anything to do with her, and she’s always felt a very deep, very visceral discomfort when their paths cross. Gods and demons, of course, and the usual uneasiness between their kinds, but something more violent as well, for all the good people she’s seen suffer under her hands.

“Don’t like her,” she says, voice pitching. “She did terrible things to those people.”

“I know.” Pigsy sighs. “That’s why they deserve their chance at justice. I can make that right, at least. Even if I can’t do anything else.”

“True.” But it doesn’t ease the churning in her stomach. The right thing so rarely does. “Still makes me uncomfortable.”

Though she hasn’t actually refused, at least not in the same strong terms as Monkey, her discomfort seems to be all the incentive Tripitaka needs to make her decision. She still looks troubled, but it seems to come a little easier to her now, when she sighs and says, “I suppose that’s that.”

“Outvoted,” Monkey crows, with his usual tactless triumph. “Thanks for sharing. Can I go back to my breakfast now?”

He doesn’t wait for Tripitaka to nod; he’s already got his mouth half-full before he’s finished speaking. Sandy tries to follow his lead, but her appetite is well and truly gone now. She doesn’t know why Pigsy’s suggestion bothers her so much — Locke has been stripped of her power twice now; she hasn’t been a real threat for a long time — but somehow it does. She feels shaky and a little sick.

Tripitaka touches her hand, lets the pressure linger for a beat or two then digs into her own breakfast without another word. For a short while — a too-short while — it seems like that really is that. Pigsy still isn’t eating, but he’s not trying to make an argument either, and for as long as it takes the rest of them to clear the table he seems mostly content to keep his thoughts on the subject to himself.

Doesn’t last, though. Because then it’s over, the quiet and the breakfast and the too-short while, and instead of standing up and taking his leave he grabs Tripitaka by the arm and says, “Mind if I talk to you in private?”

She blinks, a little thrown, but acquiesces. Understandable, really; Pigsy so seldom asks for privacy for any reason, and he’s not made any secret of his intentions here. He’s not shy, not subtle, and he almost never sees the point in trying to be those things. That he is making the effort now — that he’s making the effort on an empty stomach, even — is rather unsettling.

They move to a quiet corner, too far for even Sandy to overhear more than the occasional word. She is very experienced in the art of eavesdropping, but apparently Pigsy is better at being quiet than he pretends to be because he keeps his voice low enough that she can’t make out any part of what he says. His face says a great deal, though, dark and uncharacteristically broody, and that on its own is enough to feed the unease in her belly.

Tripitaka’s face is easy to read as well. Curious, then confused, then violently upset. She reels like she’s been struck a blow, then turns her face away, anguish painted like poetry across her features. Sandy squirms uncomfortably in her seat; she has an eerie, unpleasant suspicion she knows where this conversation is headed, even if she can’t figure out how. Even without context, their faces speak volumes.

On the other side of the table, Monkey grinds his teeth. “He’s going to talk her into it,” he mutters, seething. “Divide and conquer. He knew she’d never agree to it with us around to make her see sense, but on his own...” He snarls, though the look on his face implies he’s grudgingly impressed. “That sly son of a—”

“Yes.” Sandy swallows thickly, feeling ill. Monkey rolls his eyes and hands her a cup of water. “Can you hear anything they’re saying?”

“Nope.” He doesn’t look particularly bothered by that. Angry, yes, and deeply frustrated, but not bothered. No reason to be, Sandy supposes; even without words, they both know what’s going on. “Never mind that Locke put chains around our necks the last time we met. Never mind that she would’ve had all three of us killed if _he_ hadn’t switched sides on her. Never mind common sense, Tripitaka will fall for his stupid crap like a ton of bricks.”

“Yes.” She takes a big gulp of water. It doesn’t help. “She will.”

“She’s too impressionable for her own good,” Monkey rants, ignoring her. “It’s a human thing.”

Sandy has noticed this behaviour as well. It is often touching, occasionally inspiring, and almost always perplexing, a side of existence she doesn’t understand very well. Her experience with humans is extremely limited; before the day Tripitaka fell into her arms, it had been decades since she’d last spoke to one. Time spent with Tripitaka is a constant education, a daily lesson in being empathic and curious and kind, in assuming the best in others rather than anticipating the worst.

“It’s admirable,” she murmurs, more to herself than Monkey. “And occasionally ill-advised.” She takes a deep breath, stares into her cup so she won’t have to see Monkey’s hot, angry eyes. “I don’t want Locke with us.”

“Me neither.” He grunts his aggravation. “Then again, I never wanted the nightmare factory creep either. So what’s one more demon, right?”

“Don’t know.” She bites her lip, trying in vain not to look like the frightened little wretch she knows she is. “But something about her makes me feel... unsafe.”

It is a heavy, painful word, and she doesn’t say it lightly. She’s been feeling a great deal of discomfort since this began, most of it directed inward, but it has been a long time since she was so discomfited by someone else. Particularly, as Monkey himself pointed out yesterday, someone she could comfortably threaten with a weapon.

She’s not sure how to deal with the way she feels about this; she’s not even sure where the feeling comes from in the first place. She and Locke crossed paths and swords many times in Palawa and this was never a thought that even entered her mind; demon or not, monster or not, she should be a lifetime beyond feeling anything for her at all.

“Don’t worry about it,” Monkey says. Sandy looks up to find him baring his teeth; he’s never happier, she knows, than when he gets to flex his muscles and protect someone. “If he does convince Tripitaka to bring her along, we’ll keep her chained up and under watch at all times. She doesn’t even get to _blink_ without one of us there with a weapon at her neck.”

Sandy nods. His enthusiasm for violence, for vengeance, touches her in a place she shouldn’t admit to. It’s not something she should encourage, she knows — Tripitaka certainly wouldn’t — but she has lived all her life drenched in blood and buried in bones. Violence is in her veins, her breath, her everything, and though she has come a long way from the wild animal she once was, still there is a small part of her, impossible to kill off completely, that does not feel comfortable without blood on its teeth.

It is a comfort, though perhaps it shouldn’t be, to see Monkey touch his weapon with the same reverence she holds for her own.

“Yes,” she says, very slowly. “If it comes to that.”

Not for her sake, that part, but for Tripitaka. The peacekeeper, the lover of kindness, the tender-hearted human that has wrapped herself so inextricably around her heart. Sandy would slaughter Locke without a moment’s hesitation, given the opportunity, and so would Monkey. But Tripitaka would not and so, for her, Sandy will temper her instincts.

When she looks at Monkey again, his expression is hard. “I won’t let her touch you,” he says, very seriously. “You might be a weird, mixed-up mess right now, but you’re _our_ weird, mixed-up mess. She doesn’t get near you. _No-one_ gets near you.” His eyes gleam, embers lighting up in the moment before they die. “Okay?”

Sandy smiles. For once, it is barely an effort.

“Okay,” she says.

And this time when she climbs to her feet, she does not stumble.

*

Whatever Pigsy says to convince Trpitaka, she does not share it with them.

She doesn’t say much of anything at all, only that Pigsy is right, that his demon ex-girlfriend should join them on the journey, that Palawa is the place she needs to be, and that it should be down to the people she wronged to choose a fitting punishment.

Monkey, never happy about being kept in the dark, glares. “Care to explain the sudden change of heart?”

“No,” Tripitaka says, and her flat tone and the set of her shoulders make it clear this is no longer a subject for discussion. “I’m sorry, but no. Tie her up, or put her in chains, or do whatever you feel you need to do. But she’s coming with us.”

“Aren’t we supposed to decide these things together?” Monkey grumbles. It’s a half-hearted argument; they all know that Tripitaka always has the final say. It’s been that way from the very beginning. “What happened to ‘outvoted’?”

“It got vetoed,” Pigsy snaps. For someone who got his way, against all the odds, he doesn’t look particularly happy about it. “Deal with it, and stop complaining.”

Sandy shuffles her feet, staring down at the scuff-marks on her boots. She doesn’t want to argue any more, doesn’t want to make this any more laborious than it already is; all she wants is to run away, to disappear and hide and not exist at all for a while. But she can’t do any of that, and even if she could she suspects they would find her far too quickly.

So, because this is apparently happening whether she likes it or not, she simply looks Tripitaka in the eye and says, as quietly as she can, “I don’t like this, Tripitaka. But if you tell me it’s for the best, I will believe you.”

“I...” Tripitaka sighs, and shakes her head. “I don’t know if it’s for the best, Sandy, and I’m not going to promise you that it is. All I can say is that the only thing that matters to me right now is making you well again.”

It is something, Sandy supposes, though not as much as she would like.

She believes it, though, without a doubt. It is impossible not to when she looks in Tripitaka’s eyes and sees those words reflected there, the grief and the worry, every part of her radiating the sense of helplessness she talked about before. And maybe she will never understand how much worse that feeling is for Sandy, how devastating it is to be helpless not just in the world but inside her own mind too, but maybe it doesn’t matter quite as much as she thought it did.

Tripitaka is so human, so beautifully and tragically human, and she has so much of that precious human empathy inside of her. She doesn’t know, can’t know, but she _feels_ , so profoundly it steals Sandy’s breath just to look at her. And maybe that’s close enough for now. Close enough that when she throws her arms around Sandy’s waist and holds her tight, there is nothing Sandy can do but believe, with everything she has in her, that she would do whatever it took, whatever the cost, to see her mended.

Monkey, meanwhile, has none of that sentimentality in him, and very little patience for it in others. He’s stomping his foot again, agitated and very angry, and when he speaks it bursts the moment like an arrow through a soap bubble.

“Two of them,” he growls. “Two demons, a human, a damaged god, and an idiot who’s still hung up on his ex-girlfriend.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Pigsy says, with none of his usual humour. “Sorry.”

Monkey glares daggers, clearly still blaming him for making their situation worse, then turns around and stalks towards the door.

“If we get to Palawa in one piece,” he mutters, “it’ll be a miracle.”

No-one, not even the idealistic human, can argue with that.

*

Fortunately for everyone, they split up for the rest of the morning.

Pigsy wanders off to make arrangements for getting Locke into his custody, and Monkey sticks to his side like a particularly stubborn limpet.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you alone with your ex-girlfriend,” he says acidly. “It’s just that I _really_ don’t trust you alone with your ex-girlfriend.”

Pigsy takes that in stride, allowing him to tag along without a word.

No-one is really happy about the situation, and all the vague, hollow reassurances in the world won’t make it better; it’s a credit to him, sort of, that he doesn’t insult anyone’s intelligence by trying. Still, though she’s unlikely to shake off her discomfort any time soon, Sandy feels a bit safer knowing that Monkey will be there to oversee the whole thing.

She and Tripitaka, meanwhile, head back to the Jade Palace to reunite with the Shaman.

The long climb to the top of the palace is much more exhausting this time around. Last time, she only managed about half of it before losing consciousness; this time, the spiralling stairs seem to go on and on into oblivion. How she managed to scale the entire palace in a single sprint during the battle with Davari, she has no idea, but she sorely misses whatever mix of anger and adrenaline made it possible.

Back in the Master’s bedroom, the Shaman is not particularly pleased to see them.

And he is considerable less pleased to hear the news about Locke.

“Is there a reason this... distraction... is necessary?” he demands.

He’s speaking to Tripitaka, clearly sensing that she’s the leader of the group and the one most able to string a coherent sentence together, but his eyes are on Sandy, eyes dark and narrowed, like he’s gauging her feelings.

Tripitaka exhales, frustrated and unhappy. “It’s complicated,” she says, very carefully. “But it _is_ necessary.”

The Shaman rolls his eyes so hard it’s a wonder they don’t fall out of his head.

“Need I remind you,” he says flatly, “that I am not joining you on your little quest. I have a task I intend to see through to its completion. Nothing more, nothing less. I will not let that be hindered by your endless need to do _good_.”

He spits the last word with a sneer, like it is deeply distasteful.

Tripitaka closes her eyes; Sandy can practically hear her counting to ten.

“You won’t even know she’s there,” she says. “If Monkey has his way she’ll be bound and gagged the whole time.”

“Mm.” The Shaman cocks his head, scrutinising Sandy all the more intensely. “And your feelings about this?”

“Don’t have any,” she lies.

“Of course you don’t.” Then, without warning, he moves in and takes her chin in his hand. His eyes, almost as pale as her own, seem to look right through her. “Did you sleep?”

“Um.” She hopes she’s isn’t flushing; this close, there’s no way he would miss it. “I didn’t... not-sleep...”

His eyes harden to steel, and he releases her face in a burst of temper, as though afraid of what he would do if his wrath were left to its own devices.

“It is as though you are _trying_ to do yourself harm,” he shouts. “Inviting the company of one who clearly causes you distress. Ignoring even the simplest of instructions, no matter how much I stress their importance. Is it really so difficult for you to simply _obey_?”

“You’re a demon,” she reminds him. “And I’m a god. It is terribly difficult, yes.”

He throws up his hands, spins on his heels, and crosses the room, no doubt afraid of what he’ll do to her if he remains close.

“Saving your life,” he mutters, “will be the end of mine.”

“It’s not her fault,” Tripitaka blurts out. The Shaman does not even glance her way, but that doesn’t stop her from pressing on. “I mean, none of it, really. But especially the sleep part.”

Sandy blinks, confused and a little ashamed. She doesn’t really want this discussed, least of all by the two people who grow so angry every time she defies them. “I don’t think...”

“She can’t help it,” Tripitaka goes on, ignoring her. “How in the world is she supposed to get a half-decent night’s sleep when her mind keeps throwing things at her that she can’t fight or control? When she wakes up screaming in the middle of the—”

“That’s enough,” Sandy hisses, growing more embarrassed by the second. “He doesn’t need to know all that.”

“Quite the contrary,” the Shaman snaps. “ _He_ needs to know everything.”

And he stares at her her again, with that same feverish intensity, like he’s trying to pierce her eyes, her mind, her thoughts, like he’s trying to push past what she says and feels and thinks and find something deeper, something so deep that even she doesn’t know what or where it is. It makes her uncomfortable, wondering if there is more inside her than she can touch, if there are corners that only a demon can see, in between the cracks and crevices and broken parts. The thought makes her shudder, and she ducks under her hood to hide her face.

Sensing her rising distress, Tripitaka is by her side in a flash. She finds Sandy’s hand and holds on tight, uses her body as a shield, protecting the parts of her Sandy can’t. She can’t really get between their eyes — she is too short — but she tries to deflect the Shaman’s attention onto her instead, as best she can.

“Can’t you do something to help?” she asks. “Manipulating minds is what you do. Can’t you trick hers into staying quiet while she sleeps? Can’t you just make it stop for a few hours?”

She is pleading, Sandy realises, and not just for her sake. It occurs to her now, for perhaps the first time, that Tripitaka is as exhausted by all of this as she is, that it must be utterly draining to spend every waking moment having to watch over a confused, broken god. She did not sign up for any of this when she started her quest; she only wanted to help Monkey and restore peace to the world.

Sandy didn’t sign up for this either, true enough. But it is her mind, and the weight of it is hers to bear alone; it should not burden anyone else.

“If I was able to make it stop for ‘a few hours’,” the Shaman is saying, icy and unsympathetic, “I would be able to make it stop for good.”

A fair point, and Tripitaka has no riposte. Still, endearingly determined, she tries. “But surely there’s something you can do? She can’t—”

“I assure you, she _can_.” He locks eyes on Sandy again. “You are frightened and unwell. This we all know. But you are also strong and resilient. I do not need to venture further into your mind to know this; it is written on every molecule of your being.” True enough, though Sandy flushes a little to hear it said out loud. “You fight like a demon, like you bleed and breathe survival. Do not expect me to believe you are incapable of fighting now.”

Sandy isn’t sure that fighting like a demon is a compliment. But he is peering into the recesses of her mind, holding her fractured sanity in his hands, so she doesn’t point that out now.

“Different thing,” she says instead. “Fighting something that’s inside. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“You most assuredly do.” Stated plainly, like a fact, a truth he knows beyond all shadow of doubt, a truth she should know just as clearly. “When was the last time you remembered your dreams in full? The last time you woke in the morning without feeling confused or disoriented?”

She opens her mouth, frowns, then closes it again. Easy to assume these feelings are new, but are they really? She’s never had any reason to recall her dreams, has never wanted to. Always just assumed they must have been awful because awful was the only thing she knew. Why would she spend time trying to recall something like that?

Never thought much about how she feels when she wakes, either. Always assumed a little grogginess was normal, assumed it happened to everyone. Maybe not Monkey, true, but...

She shakes off the thought, shakes her head. “What does it matter?”

He chuckles. “Whether you realise it or not, these fractures have been a part of you for a very long time. Do not let yourself grow complacent now, just because you’ve finally become aware of them. Do not presume that you have no power over your own thoughts. I shall do what I can to repair the damage spreading in your mind, but it is _your_ responsibility to tend it. I never said it wouldn’t be challenging.”

Sandy stiffens. Tries not to bristle, but it is difficult. “I can’t—”

“You have not even tried!” He’s angry again, but it is tempered now, if only a little bit. “You woke once, confused and frightened, and refused to return to sleep for fear that the experience might be repeated. Know this: it _will_ be. Beyond doubt, beyond question. You will wake many times before this is over, screaming or shaking or violently sick, confused and frightened, not knowing where you are or how you got there. This _will_ happen, whether you like it or not. It is a part of what is happening to you, and it cannot be evaded or ignored.”

Sandy is fairly certain she’s never heard anything more terrifying in her life. “This isn’t making me _more_ inclined to sleep,” she mutters.

“It should be,” he says flatly. “Because if you cannot even endure that without throwing up your hands at the first sign of discomfort, what chance will you have when we’re face-to-face with whatever monsters shattered your mind?”

“I’m not afraid of monsters,” Sandy says automatically.

“You are afraid of _yourself_. That is far more dangerous.”

True. All of it, true.

Sandy knows that it’s harmful, being afraid of her own mind, knows that hiding from the need to sleep will only cause more distress in the end. She doesn’t need the Shaman looking at her like that, shaking his head and sighing like he truly believes she’s actively trying to make things worse for herself. Her mind is an enemy she cannot see, one she doesn’t know how to fight; it is part of her, and that makes it more frightening than any demon or human or god, more frightening than anything she has ever faced. Who wouldn’t be afraid to sleep, to lower their guard against an enemy that could consume them from within?

“Can’t fight myself,” she says wretchedly. “Can’t hold a weapon to my own head. Can’t slay demons if they’re inside me.”

The Shaman barks a ragged, humourless laugh. Wry and dry, still the sound seems to ignite the air around him.

“You misunderstand me,” he says, “As is typical of your kind. You see a demon, and assume the worst.”

She frowns, a little puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Your mind is not your enemy. Unlike you gods, my kind do not see enemies everywhere we go.” That sounds rather dubious, at least from Sandy’s own experience, but she knows better than to mention it now. “When I say you must fight, I don’t mean that you should try to _defeat_ your mind. I mean that you must _defend_ it. Nurture it, as you would a garden. Protect it, as you would your loved ones.” He looks at her, then, with such power, such fervour, that it burns in her chest too. “Do not fight yourself, little god. Fight your fear.”

Sandy tries to absorb that. Tries, but it seems no less impossible than holding a weapon to her own head.

She doesn’t know how to fight fear. She barely knows how to feel it at all. She’s lived her life as a shadow, a ghost, striking swiftly and silently and laying waste to whatever frightening things lurk in the dark. She is strong and quick and powerful, and she has learned how to make fear bow to her. Hide from the things that would hunt her, kill the things that would hurt her. Real things, tangible things, the things she can see and hear and kill. But _this_...

This is nothing, and it is everything. It is her mind, her memory, _herself_. She’s never faced anything like this before. And yes, she is frightened.

“I can’t...” She swallows thickly. “I can’t just _not_ be afraid.”

“Of course not. I would never ask you to.” He tears his gaze away, like he knows it’s upsetting her even more. “But you can face it with courage.”

Sandy doesn’t know what compels her to look to Tripitaka, only that she always does, that it is as much a part of her nature to seek out her warm smile and her warm eyes and her warm hand as it is to seek the sea or the darkness or the whispers of water-breathing creatures when she feels alone or overwhelmed. Her anchor, her tether, a place where she can feel afraid and still wonder—

“Can I?”

She’s not looking for an answer, not really. She is looking for what she finds, what Tripitaka gives without even knowing it, what she always gives, endless and boundless and unfathomable.

_Faith_.

And there it is, in the way her eyes catch the light, the way her fingers catch Sandy’s and hold on so tight.

“Yeah,” she says, quiet but ever so strong. “Yeah, you can.”

And Sandy isn’t sure if she believes it any more coming from Tripitaka than from the Shaman, or from anyone else.

But _Tripitaka_ believes it.

And that—

That means something.

Everything.

And Sandy is frightened and broken and she can’t breathe. And she doesn’t know if she has courage, doesn’t know if such a thing exists in her, but when she looks at Tripitaka and sees how purely and how completely she believes that it does, when her eyes burn so brightly, throwing all that faith back into Sandy’s face, reflected, refracted, resplendent, when she feels it seep in her bones, into her blood, into her everything—

She will try.

And if it is there, if that courage does exist in her, somewhere, anywhere—

She will find it.

*


	6. Chapter 6

*

They meet up with the others at the village gates.

It’s not the most pleasant reunion, all things considered.

Monkey has Locke in handcuffs, and he seems to take a vengeful sort of pleasure in yanking on the end of the chain. Hard to know whether he’s trying to throw her off-balance or simply annoy her, but neither seems to be working. Still, dogged as ever, he tries.

Tripitaka raises a disapproving eyebrow when she sees him doing it, as soft-hearted as ever at the sight of someone being mistreated — even someone as deserving as Locke — but Monkey doesn’t stop even for her.

“Payback for what she did to us,” he remarks, and gives the chain another spiteful tug.

“We don’t have to stoop to their level,” Tripitaka says with a sigh.

“Don’t have to.” He shows his teeth. “But I _want_ to.”

Pigsy, surprisingly but rather sensibly, is keeping his distance. He’s loitering a few paces back, not saying anything to anyone, seemingly content to let them work out their issues without him.

He seems deeply distraught by the whole thing, acutely aware of the fact that he’s the reason why everyone’s miserable. Sandy might feel a little sorry for him, if the whole mess wasn’t his idea in the first place. As it is, the part of her that was stuck in Locke’s prison with Monkey can’t help thinking his distress is a small price to pay for inflicting so much on the rest of them.

She doesn’t say that, though. Like Monkey, she would sooner vent her anger on one rather more deserving.

“I hope you’re comfortable,” she says to Locke, tasting acid on her tongue. “You’ve more freedom under our hospitality than we had under yours, as I recall.”

Locke shrugs, as best she can while restrained. She doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the chains, or by the Monkey King rattling them. Even bound and humiliated, she holds herself with pride and... well, whatever passes for dignity in a self-obsessed, sybaritic demon. She is unruffled, unaffected, and maddeningly calm.

“More comfortable than you,” she murmurs, looking Sandy up and down like a side of meat. “At least, from what I hear tell.”

Sandy rounds on Pigsy, glaring daggers. Annoyed and a little violated, she only wishes she were surprised.

“Can we please not discuss my condition with our enemies?”

Pigsy has the grace to look abashed, but he doesn’t apologise. “It just sort of... came up.”

“Well, please put it back down.” She doesn’t look back at Locke — can’t, not now that she knows she knows — but she can still feel her smirking. “It’s not her business.”

“Oh, I’d say it bloody well is,” Locke shoots back, though she must realise she wasn’t being spoken to. “You lot are dangerous enough when your brains are in the right order. I’d sooner not take any chances when they’re scrambled. What’s to stop you from going off on one and slaughtering me on the spot just because you thought I looked at you funny?”

A great many things, in truth.

No matter the state of her mind, there are lines that Sandy has not crossed in many years, lines that she will not — cannot — allow herself to start crossing again. She won’t hesitate to kill a demon, even one in a weakened state, but she will not kill a living soul, demon or otherwise, that can’t defend itself. No matter how much pain this particular soul has inflicted in the past, to others and to her personally. She will not become the feral creature she once was. Not for someone so undeserving.

Locke doesn’t need to know any of that, though. A little fear can go a long way in keeping dangerous foes at bay; Sandy has learned this many times. 

So, instead of speaking the truth, she smiles and says, “Nothing.”

“You what?”

“You heard me.” She looks at the ground, at her boots and Locke’s impractical shoes, at the glittering fabric of her skirts. Avoids making eye-contact because she knows it will make her nervous. “I’m not very much in control of myself at the moment. I can’t in good conscience promise that I wouldn’t do something unpredictable if you were to look at me funny.” She lets her eyes catch the sunlight, lets them gleam. “So perhaps you’d best avoid looking at me at all.”

If Locke is discomfited by that, she hides it very well. Sandy would expect no less from someone with so much experience in being hated.

“Pity,” she says, with a shrug that shakes her whole body. “Here was me hoping we’d be chit-chatting like old friends.”

“We’re not old friends,” Sandy says flatly. “Or any kind of friends. You’ve tried to capture me countless times over the years. Tried to make me a prisoner, tried to have me interrogated, tortured, _killed_. Tried everything you could think of to do me harm.”

Locke shows her teeth too, a mirror of Monkey’s vindictive glee.

“Never took, though, did it? Never had a god get away from me as many times as you did.” She sobers a little, as though growing nostalgic. “A right shame, all this nonsense. You were formidable once, a proper little thorn in my side. Now look at you.”

“Thought we already established I’d kill you if you did that.” She won’t, of course, and she knows that Locke knows it too; still, it makes her feel a little better, pretending her claws are still sharp. “So maybe you shouldn’t do that. For your own safety, you understand.”

Beside her, half-forgotten, Tripitaka inhales sharply. “Sandy!”

Sandy doesn’t look at her. If she does, she knows her resolve will shatter completely, knows that Tripitaka’s brutal, beautiful humanity will devour her. She’s not ready to feel as fragile as she does when she looks at her. Not yet.

“She is a monster, Tripitaka.” Cold, empty, at least as much as she can muster. “I may have lost pieces of myself, but I haven’t lost sight of that.”

“Smart thinking,” Monkey says, and gives the chain another quick yank.

Head in his hands, Pigsy lets out a low moan. He looks like he wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole, like he would give anything to simply disappear and never be seen again.

That’s a feeling Sandy knows well — has lived her life that way, more or less, for as long as she can recall — but seldom with a reason as good as he has now. There is not a soul in his vicinity, god or demon or human, who doesn’t blame him for this, and no amount of good intentions can cleanse him of that truth. She’s spitefully glad he’s feeling this way; he should be.

“Is all this really necessary?” he asks miserably. “Can’t we just get going?”

“An excellent question,” the Shaman mutters, huffing an impatient sigh. He is also keeping his distance from the rest of them, looking like he’s seriously considering turning his back on the whole affair. “Is it always so tedious, waiting for your merry band of do-gooders to actually do anything?” 

Seemingly in spite of himself, Monkey chuckles. “Most of the time, yeah.”

“Typical.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, as though fending off a nasty headache. “In that case, allow me to add my voice to that of your foolish friend: if you all could rein in your posturing for an instant, perhaps we might, ‘just get going’? Time is of the essence, and we’ve wasted far too much of it already.”

No-one can argue with that, and no-one tries.

Sandy is not the only one to flush with shame, but she is the one who should know better. Her broken mind is the reason they’re here in the first place; it’s her responsibility to stay focused. Shouldn’t let Locke get under her skin so easily, shouldn’t let herself get distracted. Shouldn’t give in to the gnawing discomfort in the pit of her stomach, the grinding of hunger and nausea against each other. Shouldn’t let it overwhelm her, the urgent need to fight and fight and _fight_ , against any enemy she thinks she can defeat.

Tripitaka, studying her closely while pretending she’s looking at something else, takes charge in her usual easy manner. Sandy doesn’t recognise the odd, tight look on her face, but her sudden seriousness is unsettling.

“He’s right,” she says, in a voice that puts an end to all further discussion. “The longer we stick around here, the worse it’s going to get for all of us. If we’re packed and ready, let’s just get going.”

Still no argument from the rest of them.

It’s good to have something to focus on, a destination, a place to turn their feet their bodies. Good for all of them, quite probably, but especially for Sandy. Comforting, in a way, to turn her face to the horizon, the distant line where earth meets sky, to focus on the light in front of her and not the shadows lurking behind. There are enough demons crawling around inside her head; she won’t let herself be distracted by one who is chained and bound and harmless.

“Yes,” she says, to herself and only herself. “Let’s do that.”

And so, with a last long look at the palace, its endless stretching tower, its triumphs and its tragedies, they turn and leave the Jade Mountain behind.

*

On the road, they make a strange procession.

Three gods, two demons, and the world’s tiniest human. Some of them sulking, some angry, and some just plain miserable. It is a blessing that their journey takes them through leagues and leagues of nowhere, nothing but vast wilderness in all directions, that there is no-one around to notice them; even the resistance would think twice before welcoming the Monkey King into their arms if they saw his present company.

To say nothing of his present mood.

He’s more frustrated and upset than all the rest of them put together. That’s no mean feat, given the fact that he’s perhaps the least directly affected. No brain damage for him, no snide ex-girlfriends throwing advances or insults depending on the weather, no need to depend on his mortal enemy to keep him in one piece. He’s angry because he dislikes demons — because he dislikes these two demons in particular — and it really is as simple as that.

Still, he uses it well, letting his hatred propel him forward, strong legs churning up dirt and gravel like sharks in still water.

Bad luck for Locke, then, that he won’t let go of her chains. Pigsy offers a few times to take charge of her, but Monkey is understandably dubious about that. He doesn’t trust anything he doesn’t do himself, and he trusts Pigsy least of all when his former lover is involved. Sandy doubts Pigsy would surrender again to the same vices that once consumed him, but she’s more grateful than she’d care to admit that Monkey has taken it upon himself to keep the two of them separated.

And so, pouring his frustrated rage into his body, he quickly outpaces the rest of them, moving ahead at blistering speed and dragging his hapless captive along with him.

Locke, to her credit, does not complain, nor does she struggle as much as one might expect. She may have lived most of her long life in luxury, but she’s not afraid of getting her hands dirty when necessary; Sandy has seen her fight several times over the years — has fought her, too, on the few occasions necessity dragged her out of the shadows to do so — and she is well acquainted with her stamina. If Monkey thinks he can wear her out as easily as her lifestyle would suggest, he’s setting himself up for disappointment.

Sandy, for her part, is already worn out. They’ve barely even started, and already it is an unfathomable effort simply to keep walking.

One foot in front of the other. Eyes on the horizon. Mind as blank as she can will it to be. Focused, focused, _focused._

It is twice the effort, twice the exertion, twice as much work for everything she once did without a thought. Willing her body to move, willing her mind not to, straining with every fibre of her being to keep both of those things happening at once: stillness inside and motion outside, stillness and motion and stillness and motion...

It is so much _work_.

Keeping pace beside her, lest his services be needed, the Shaman tuts. “If you had slept as I told you to,” he remarks, without sympathy, “you would not be so exhausted now.”

Sandy doesn’t bother wondering if he’s been reading her thoughts. Where he’s concerned, the answer is almost certainly ‘yes’.

“Not _exhausted_ ,” she mutters, all the more petulant because they both know perfectly well that she is. “The ground isn’t level here. It’s uneven. Not easy to keep your balance on uneven ground.”

He thins his lips, dryly sardonic. “Truly?”

Tripitaka, seemingly having no trouble whatsoever keeping her balance, gives an awkward cough. “I mean, maybe it’s a _little_ uneven?”

“There is nothing wrong with the ground,” the Shaman snaps, patience fracturing. “Do not indulge her petty little excuses.”

Tripitaka bows her head, mumbles a less-than-sincere, “Sorry.”

The Shaman waves a hand, dismissive and demonstrative at the same time, a wordless reminder that he could simply teleport wherever he wished, that he is walking by her side out of compassion, not necessity. It’s sort of sweet, at least by demon standards, if somewhat tainted by his usual aura of smug superiority.

“I am not nearly as accustomed as your kind to this barbaric method of transportation,” he reminds them both. “If it is not a challenge for me, it should be effortless for you.”

“Nothing is effortless for me any more,” Sandy mutters, ashamed and defiant in nearly-equal measure. “Not since this all began.” She closes her eyes, regrets it instantly as the ground seems to pitch beneath her feet without her vision to hold it steady. “Not even breathing is effortless now.”

Tripitaka makes a sad sound. Indistinct, wordless, but it makes Sandy feel angry and frustrated with herself. They are taking this journey for her, postponing the quest that matters, the most important thing in the whole world, so that she and the Shaman might stitch her mind back together. It is a vast and unfathomable thing, the idea that the world can be made to wait, that she somehow matters more to these people than all the gods and humans everywhere. It makes her feel humble and small and utterly unworthy.

“It’s okay,” Tripitaka says, as though she somehow hears all of that. Sandy opens her eyes to find hers looking tearful, weighted with sincerity. “We’ll go slow, if that’s what you need. Take as much time as you—”

“ _No_.” Her voice is a living tremor. It is so much harder than it should be, thinking of the words and then saying them, trying to communicate and keep putting one foot in front of the other, and all at the same time. “No. We’re already putting off more important things for the sake of this. I won’t draw it out any longer than I absolutely have to.”

“Excellent,” the Shaman deadpans. “Wear yourself down until there’s nothing left of you. That will surely achieve your goal much more quickly, and certainly won’t result in your premature death.”

Tripitaka makes a strangled, choking noise. Hard to tell whether she’s upset or trying to stave off unwanted amusement, but the look on her face is utterly serious when she says, “Your bedside manner is awful.”

He rolls his eyes, and says, without a trace of irony, “I’m a demon, not a doctor.”

Sandy growls low in her throat, dark and dangerous and not aimed as exclusively at the Shaman as she might like.

“Don’t need a doctor,” she grits out. “I just need to _concentrate_.”

And so she does. Picks up the pace with a struggle she’ll never admit to, and leaves the two of them blinking dumbly at her back.

She catches up with Monkey by sheer force of will. Breathless, stumbling, sweat beading on her brow and between her shoulder blades, she feels as useless as Pigsy on a good day. She’s angry and humiliated, hating herself for being so weak; she must look a terrible wreck, and Monkey is about the only one of them she trusts not to mention it.

She’s well accustomed to exhaustion, of course. It’s one of the few drawbacks of being gifted with incredible speed, the lack of stamina to go with it; she can run like a tidal wave, hard to catch and impossible to outrun, but like all fast-moving things she burns out very quickly. She’s not like Monkey — or Locke, so it seems — all strength and solidity, endurance to keep going for days without ever needing to stop. Sandy runs on adrenaline, on hunger, on _survival_... and once those things run dry, they’re gone for good.

Different kind of exhaustion now, though, and it doesn’t feel nearly as good. Feels unearned, worthless. No burning muscles, no boiling in her blood, no vapour trails to show where she’s been or how far she’s come. No mist around her, no sea of demon bodies dissolving and decaying in her wake. Nothing. Just walking, just not-thinking, just keeping herself in one piece. Just _existing_. It shouldn’t make her feel like this, like she’s just fought a legion of demons all on her own. Keeping herself alive should not make her feel half-dead.

Monkey cocks his head when she falls into step beside him. Looks her up and down, chewing his tongue. His shoulders get tight, taking in her pitiful state, but he doesn’t mention it. Just as she knew he wouldn’t, the reason why she chose him: he understands. He wouldn’t want her to say anything if he were in her place, and so he grants her the same quiet dignity in return.

He slackens his pace just a little, though, enough that she doesn’t have to strain to keep up, then holds out Locke’s chains with a friendly grin. “You want a turn?”

Sandy shakes her head. Difficult enough doing everything she needs to do, walking and trying not to think, without introducing yet another task. Especially one that still makes her uncomfortable.

“You seem to be doing well enough,” she says, and hopes he doesn’t notice the way she stumbles as she speaks, losing her balance with the effort of it.

He does notice, but he does a marvellous job of pretending he doesn’t. “Your loss.”

If Locke has an opinion on the way they talk about her, she keeps it to herself. Sandy doesn’t doubt for an instant that she’s watching everything, shrewd and clever as she is, searching for weak points to exploit, but she keeps her mouth shut and doesn’t try to engage. Just keeps right on walking, head held high, like Monkey isn’t dragging her along by the wrists, like she can’t hear them talking about her like she’s something less than human.

Sandy blocks her out, the silence as discomfiting as everything else about her. Focuses on Monkey instead, drawing strength and steadiness from his loose shoulders and long stride.

It works, for a time. Easier without the Shaman lecturing in her ear, chiding her for all the things she’s doing wrong, easier without Tripitaka squeezing her hand just a little too tight, without her high voice asking if she’s all right every time she misses a step or a breath. Easier without the two of them together, both pulling her in their own direction too much compassion or too little, pushing too hard or being too gentle. Easier, without the distraction, to focus on the important things, the things she needs to keep working: her head in one breath, her legs in the next.

And for a while, a blessed while, it works.

But a struggle is still a struggle, even when it’s smaller, and she is still stumbling. Her head is still too loud, and every bit of strength she leaves in the dust makes it a little bit harder to keep it quiet. It is still difficult, even when it’s easier, and when she loses her footing and falls to her knees, even Monkey can’t pretend he doesn’t notice.

Better with him, though. He doesn’t push her to stand like the Shaman would, and he doesn’t fret and worry like Tripitaka would. He stops but doesn’t kneel, drops a hand onto her shoulder and says, like it’s the most normal thing in the world, “Head stuff?”

It is so cool, so casual, so much the opposite of Tripitaka and the Shaman, that Sandy almost laughs. 

Almost cries, too.

“Difficult to do two things at once,” she explains. Eyes closed, breathing shallow. Her head is hurting again, and she’s sure she can feel the places where it’s cracked. “Supposed to not think too much. But I can’t walk and not-think at the same time.”

“Sure you can.” She squints up, finds him smiling tightly. “I do it all the time.”

And this time she does laugh, because it’s so true.

“Maybe you should be my healer,” she muses, and lets the levity help her to climb back up to her feet, “instead of the Shaman.”

He snorts, amused but still guarded, and doesn’t let go of her shoulder until he’s absolutely sure she’s steady.

“Too much thinking never does anyone any good,” he says, low and gritty. “Best for everyone when you— when _we_ just do what we do and not think about it at all.”

“Can’t remember how,” Sandy mumbles. “Had to stay focused on holding my head together since this started. Too afraid of what might happen if I let it go now.”

It is much easier to admit this to him than it would be to the Shaman or Tripitaka. Monkey is distant, separate; he doesn’t understand much of what’s happening to her, and that’s just the way he likes it. Doesn’t like to be weighed down by too much thought or too much feeling, doesn’t like too much of anything. He acts without thought, just like she used to, before even not-thinking became something she had to think about. She wishes she could remember how to be like him, but she will settle for being with him, for letting his carelessness feed the part of her that was once the same.

He opens his mouth as she watches him, holds it open for a couple of seconds like he’s trying to catch flies. Like he wants to try and help but he understands that talking about it would mean _talking about it_ , would mean acknowledging all the things they’re both trying so hard to pretend don’t exist, like he’s not really sure if he wants to do that, if he should want to, if it’s even his place to.

Sandy isn’t entirely comfortable with that, but if he tried then so would she.

He doesn’t get the chance, though. The words hang suspended on the air, a thread pulled taut enough to snap, but in the instant before it does—

“Are you okay?”

Tripitaka, rushing to their side, the worry in her eyes shattering the almost-moment like a crystal chandelier.

Sandy flinches. Doesn’t know what to say.

Monkey does, though, and he doesn’t hesitate.

“She’s fine,” he says, keen and pointed. “Just took a spill. No big deal. Y’know, the ground’s pretty uneven around here...”

Sandy’s breath bursts out of her in a relieved, grateful rush; she hadn’t even realised she was holding it in.

“Just as I told you,” she says to Tripitaka, staring down at the not-at-all-uneven ground.

“A compelling argument,” the Shaman says, materialising behind Tripitaka’s shoulder, “if your mind were not the maelstrom it is. Do you truly believe I cannot hear it?”

Sandy clenches her teeth. “Well, maybe if you’d stop _listening_...”

“That is not an option until you are able to control yourself.”

“Well, well, well.” Locke, speaking up for the first time, cutting through the tension with her usual flair for the dramatic and tactless. “It’s a laugh a minute with you lot, innit?”

Monkey glares at her over his shoulder. “You’re not gagged yet,” he says tartly. “Do you want me to change my mind?”

She holds up her hands, manacles and all, and flashes him a winsome smile. “Just a little observation, love. Don’t go getting your crown in a tangle over it.”

Monkey dismisses her with an impatient, irritable wave, then turns back to Tripitaka and the Shaman. “She’s fine,” he says again, in a voice that leaves no room for further debate, from either corner. “You can both back off now.”

It is deeply touching, the way he digs in his heels and squares his jaw, the way he steps in front of her as soon as he sees that she’s uncomfortable, blocking her from the Shaman, even from Tripitaka; he doesn’t actually draw his staff but every inch of him is quivering in readiness, and there is no doubt in Sandy’s mind that he would have it out in a split-second if he thought it was necessary.

Monkey is much more physical than Tripitaka in the way he tries to help; it’s the only way he really knows how to convey his feelings. She’s never had much cause to think about it before, but with so much going on inside her now, so much chaos and noise in her head, so much bruised tenderness in her heart, it is oddly comforting to stand behind someone who has nothing but his body to offer.

They do back off, albeit grudgingly. The Shaman, annoyed at the waste of time, and at her refusal to admit that she’s in distress, throws up his hands and stalks off; Tripitaka looks up at her for another moment, and only moves to leave when Sandy refuses to meet her eye.

“As long as you’re okay,” she says quietly.

Sandy doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move at all, not until Tripitaka is gone as well, shuffling away to catch up with the Shaman. 

Monkey stays where he is until they’re safely out of earshot, until Sandy is able to start breathing again. He doesn’t ask if she’s all right, lets the rise and fall of her chest be all the answer he needs. Doesn’t try to encourage her, either, or push her or tell her what to do. He just pats her shoulder, grips Locke’s chains a little tighter, then starts moving again like nothing ever happened. Keeps his pace slow enough that she can match it if she wants, but he doesn’t press her to join him. Lets the decision be entirely hers, whose company she’d prefer to keep.

All things considered, it’s not a hard choice.

He grins when she catches up with him, almost proud, then quickly smothers it with a sober look.

“Listen,” he says. “That demon jerk, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Spoken with passion and ferocity, the violence of his old grudge welling up inside him; Sandy lets it feed her. “Doesn’t matter how many years he’s spent messing around with gods’ heads, he’s still one of _them_.”

Sandy wants to believe that. She also really doesn’t want to believe it.

Easy to assume that the divide between demons and gods is too wide to ever be crossed; instinct is instinct, and hers are as keen as Monkey’s when it comes to wanting to keep a distance from their kind, in wanting to harm them as viscerally as they want to harm her. But the Shaman is the only one who knows, even at the most basic, rudimentary level, what is happening to her; take him away, and what remains but three helpless gods and a well-meaning but otherwise useless human?

“His methods have worked thus far,” she says quietly. “Difficult as they may be. And he’s right: when I think too hard, everything gets worse inside of me. Even if he’s not one of us, he knows enough about it to...”

Trails off. Doesn’t want to say ‘keep me alive’. Doesn’t want to acknowledge that her continued existence lies in the hands of a mortal enemy.

Whether he knows what she’s thinking or not, Monkey lends it no weight. “Sure,” he says with a shrug. “But all this ‘focus and concentrate’ stuff is never going to work. We’re not wired like him, all that empty space and meditation and whatever else. Easy for someone like him to just make up his mind to not think, right? There’s nothing of substance in his stupid head to begin with.”

Sandy musters a chuckle, but it’s weak and she can’t make it last. “He does make it sound simpler than it is.”

“Right. Because we’re not like that. You and me, gods in general. We’re more complex than their kind.”

“Speak for yourself,” Locke pipes up from behind them, sounding entirely too cheery. “I’ve got barrel-loads of complexity, I do.”

Monkey yanks viciously on her chain. “Don’t push me, demon.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, handsome.”

Sandy ignores their squabbling. Her head hurts just trying to think about this.

“But I don’t know what else to do,” she sighs at last. “Don’t know how to keep my thoughts silent, if not by doing what he says. Never needed to before.”

“Right. All that time in the dark, whiling away the hours by talking to yourself?” He musters a wry, unconvincing grin. “Guess someone has to enjoy your company, huh?”

Sandy bristles, angry in spite of herself. “Never said I enjoyed it,” she says. “Just that it was all I had.”

He turns, still moving, and looks her in the face. Must see something of significance there, because his expression darkens, all feints at humour vanishing in a faint flush.

“Right. Sorry.” He clears his throat and presses swiftly on before this has a chance to become a moment. “Anyway. What I was trying to say is, if you can stick it out until we stop for lunch, I’ll sneak you away some place quiet and show you how us real gods keep our heads quiet.”

She studies him, curious and a little hopeful. Finds him staring at her too, that awkward-but-cocky half-grin on his face, the one he wears so well. Open and eager. Genuinely wants to help, genuinely pleased with himself because he thinks he can. It’s a good look on him, but one he doesn’t often turn on her. Usually he saves it for Tripitaka, for the too-frequent moments where she does something inescapably human and he gets to show off his talents to save the day.

Flattering, Sandy thinks, that he cares about her as much as his favourite human. Embarrassing as well, in a way, that he looks at her like she’s one too.

She narrows her eyes, tries to swallow the discomfort. “What, exactly, do you plan to do?”

And he smirks big and broad and bright, like an overgrown child who thinks he’s so much cleverer than he is.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” he says. “Call it an incentive to keep going. You pass out before we get there, you’ll never know.”

And off he strides, grinning over his shoulder, daring her to keep up.

*

As incentives go, it’s a pretty good one.

Curiosity. Stubbornness. Not wanting to appear as weak as she is. Like him, these things drive her far more efficiently than the Shaman’s instructions or Tripitaka’s well-meaning worry.

Monkey doesn’t waste his time trying to guide her or instruct her, doesn’t fuss or fret over her; he doesn’t seem to mind either way, whether she keeps up with him or not, whether she takes him up on his challenge or not, whether or not she does much of anything at all. He does what he wants, independent, and it’s up to her to join him or not.

And she does. Dogged. Determined. Exhausted and stumbling, but still she does. And the one concession she makes, the one concession he makes too, is in those fleeting moments when she stumbles or falters, and he steadies her with his whole big body so the others won’t see. Less pain in leaning on him than in letting Tripitaka think she’s weakening.

Even if it’s true. Even if she is.

And she _is_.

It is an ordeal, even with Monkey’s wordless, gestureless encouragement. By the time they stop for lunch, a few hours that feels like a few lifetimes, her head is aching and her ears are ringing and she is terrified beyond words that her mind is about to split open. Feels the splinters spreading, skittering in her mind, and she can’t breathe for fear of losing herself again.

The Shaman, no doubt sensing her distress, tries to corner her. She wonders if he can feel it as viscerally as she can, the tearing of pieces inside of her, or if he’s simply looking for an excuse to lecture her.

“You should use this opportunity to centre yourself,” he suggests, firm but not cruel. “Restrain your wayward thoughts and feelings before they do harm to us both.”

Sandy grimaces. She wouldn’t even know where to begin, and she lacks the fortitude to even try. She opens her mouth to tell him that, to point out her flaws and her faults for what feels like the hundredth time, but before she gets the chance to say anything at all, Monkey swoops in to rescue her, driving his body between them like it’s a weapon, like he’s made it his purpose to keep her and the Shaman away from each other.

“Sorry,” he says, faux-chipper and without a trace of sincerity. “She’s already got plans. Why don’t you go and bother someone else?”

The Shaman narrows his eyes at Sandy. “Your condition is very serious,” he reminds her, not bothering to spare Monkey a glance. “Don’t let this brutish oaf deceive you into thinking it is not. You must _rest_. You must focus your energies, suppress your troubled thoughts. You must—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Monkey makes a show of yawning right in the Shaman’s face. “Trust me, eyelashes: by the time I’m done with her, she’ll be as good as new.”

“Oh?” The Shaman quirks a bemused eyebrow. “This from the god who couldn’t even keep his _own_ memories under control?”

That’s a low blow. Monkey’s whole body goes whipcord-tight, shoulders bunching, arms twitching, fingers locking into fists at his sides. For a second or two it looks like he’s going to tear the Shaman apart right then and there, and in truth Sandy’s not sure she would blame him if he did.

She has no idea what compels him to stop, what stray thought brings him back to himself, but something surely does. He takes a couple of steps back, distancing himself from the temptation to do violence, and even though he keeps his fists clenched — a warning, perhaps, or a threat — still he keeps his instincts in check. He’s grown a lot, Sandy thinks proudly, and swallows the urge to tell him so.

“You know as well as I do,” Monkey snarls at the Shaman, low and with real danger, “that that would never have happened if you hadn’t been poking around in places you weren’t invited. You don’t get to call _me_ out for tripping over _your_ stupid mistake.”

The Shaman seems struck, cut free for a moment from his usual calm, but he doesn’t retaliate. Perhaps he realises there is no argument he could make, or perhaps he’s simply afraid that anything he said would cause Monkey to go for his neck. Either way, he shakes off the point, shrugs his bony shoulders, and turns around.

“On your head be it,” he says to Sandy, in a voice like carved ice. “I won’t be held responsible if his idiocy makes your condition worse.”

“It won’t,” Monkey snaps, glaring daggers at his retreating back. “Because unlike you, I actually know what I’m doing.”

Sandy fidgets, a little uncomfortable. She doesn’t like having two people argue over her like that. Knows, of course, that it’s not really about her condition, or about her at all, but she still feels like a sacrificial lamb, a symbol of something for both of them, a point of contention or a prize to be won, a gambling chip in their game of one-upmanship. She might feel dreadfully unsafe if she didn’t know they both care more about her well-being than their own grudges.

If only _slightly_ more.

Beside her, sad and contemplative, Tripitaka says to Monkey, “I don’t think any of us really know what we’re doing here.”

It’s sort of chiding, sort of warning, sort of several different things, but Monkey ignores them all. “ _I_ do,” he says again, though his eyes are still hot, following the Shaman’s retreating form. “Don’t you trust me?”

Sandy looks from his angry dark eyes to the Shaman’s stiff shoulders. She doesn’t know how to tell him that she trusts them both equally; she has a feeling he wouldn’t want to hear that.

So, instead, she just nods and says, “Of course I trust you, Monkey.”

Tripitaka sighs. Her hands clench and unclench at her sides, not fists but spasms, like she wants to reach out but thinks it’s probably a bad idea; she’s looking up at Sandy like she can see every part of the burden on her shoulders, like she is so afraid it will crush her.

“You sure you’ve got the strength for this?” she asks gently.

Probably not, but Sandy nods anyway. “Better than trying again to do it the Shaman’s way,” she points out. “And failing again. And having him shout at me again. And—”

“Okay.” Tripitaka holds up a hand; unlike Monkey, she has no intention of starting an argument. “All right. If that’s what you want, go ahead.”

Ignoring them both, Monkey stalks up to Pigsy and, scowling all the while, shoves Locke’s chains into his hands.

It’s a big, significant gesture. He hasn’t let Locke move more than ten steps away since they left the Jade Mountain, and he hasn’t let those chains out of his hand even once. Now, though, he acts like it’s nothing, like he doesn’t especially care what happens to her. An act of necessity, perhaps, but certainly not one of compassion.

“Can I trust you not to set her loose the second my back’s turned?”

Pigsy looks stricken. He’s been uncharacteristically quiet all morning, clearly aware of how much his choices have upset and annoyed everyone else and wanting to keep a low profile until they calm down. Smart, Sandy thinks, though she’s found she rather misses his complaining.

“Believe me,” he says to Monkey, “I don’t want her free any more than you do.”

Never one to be ignored, Locke huffs a derisive laugh. “Please. We’re in the middle of bloody nowhere. Who’d be daft enough to run away out here?”

“Fair point,” Pigsy says, then clears his throat when Monkey starts to growl. “I mean, uh... of course, I’ll make sure she stays put. Don’t worry about it.”

The look on Monkey’s face makes it perfectly clear, how unlikely that is.

*

He brings Sandy to a quiet clearing, surrounded on all sides by trees.

“Scenic,” Sandy muses; she can feel the dewdrops heavy on the grass and the flowers, the moisture in the air. It helps to calm her a little, the absence of anyone or anything else, only air and water and blissful quiet. “I like it.”

“Good,” Monkey says, smiling with genuine warmth. “Now, here’s what we’re going to do...”

And without another word, he draws his staff and takes a swing at her head.

Sandy ducks automatically, reflexes honed by a lifetime in the shadows, a lifetime of survival, of ducking and dodging unannounced attacks just like this. Her scythe is up before she even realises she’s moved, parrying the blow by instinct. The clang of contact reverberates all through her body, igniting her nerves, and she drops into a crouch, instantly readying for combat.

“What...” she starts, then rethinks the question. “ _Why_?”

He pulls back just long enough to shrug a little, then lunges again. A lazy, casual strike, more for show than anything else, and she blocks it just as effortlessly as she did the first.

“You wanted to empty your head.” He says it with a grin, each word punctuated by movement, ducking and weaving, reacting to nothing, like he’s waiting for her to counter. “I’ve seen the way you fight. Like me. Always in the moment, wholly and completely. Like there’s nothing else in the whole damn world. Just you and your enemy.”

He pulls back for a split-second, then lunges once more, still lazy but with genuine ferocity. He’d draw blood if she let him, but they both know she won’t. She blocks again, without even trying.

“Yes.” Her mind is exhausted, but her body feels like it’s waking up, breathing in harmony with the old, familiar instincts. “Can’t think too much on a battlefield. You think too much, you die.”

His grin widens, sharpens. “Now you’re getting it.”

And he _swings_ —

And this time she doesn’t block, doesn’t deflect. This time she catches the edge of his staff with the blade of her scythe and twists as hard as she can, until he’s off-balance in his effort to hold on to the thing. And her legs engage, power in her thighs, her calves, her toes, power thrumming through her whole body, driving her up and forwards until the _whump_ of impact judders through them both: her shoulder, his chest, and—

And there is joy, real, earnest joy, blossoming inside of her, when he twists as well, when he digs his heels into the damp earth and recovers himself, when he twirls and whirls and spins and—

And then they’re _fighting_ , together, not with force but with ferocity, with passion and power and pounding, pumping blood. No thought, just instinct, just reflex, just survival, survival, _survival_ —

And it doesn’t matter that it’s not real, that he wouldn’t really hurt her any more than she would ever truly hurt him, that it’s all harmless and playful and silly. Doesn’t matter that he’s just a big kid playing with a magic stick, that they’re just two big kids playing together. Doesn’t matter, none of it; the only thing that does is the way it makes her feel, the adrenaline, the raw physicality burning in her bones, her nerves, her everything.

And so it goes, on and on and on, until she loses track of time, loses track of her surroundings, loses track of everything except the blood pounding in her ears, the _hiss_ of the air when Monkey’s staff carves a path through it, the ache in her limbs, familiar and glorious and perfect, until they’ve both given and taken more than their fair share of bruises, until—

Until Pigsy’s voice booms through the foliage to announce lunch, and they have no choice but to reawaken and acknowledge the rest of the world.

They return to camp with shaking legs. Both of them, weak-limbed and giddy, not quite leaning against each other but close enough to raise a couple of eyebrows, and oh, what a blessing it is not to be the only one who can’t stand up completely straight, who limps just a little and stumbles on ground that isn’t uneven at all.

Tripitaka, of course, scrambles to Sandy’s side the instant she sits down. Doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t really say much of anything, but she leans in close and makes a very unsubtle show of looking her up and down.

“I’m well,” Sandy tells her, flushing a little under her scrutiny.

Tripitaka nods, fingers flexing in her lap, struggling against the impulse to take her hand. She doesn’t seem to spare more than a glance for Monkey, and that makes Sandy feel deeply uncomfortable. It’s not the way things usually are, not the way they should be. Tripitaka is who she is because of Monkey, for him; she is as bound to his name as Sandy is to hers, and she doesn’t want to be the thing that changes that.

Except, perhaps, a small part of her does. Wonders, selfish and stupid, how it would feel to be looked at like that, to be _seen_ that way. It is terrifying, but strangely tantalising.

She ducks her head, hides her face, tries to ignore the fact that Tripitaka is not the only one studying her.

The Shaman, also lacking in subtlety and trying to hide it, at least takes a moment to study Monkey as well. He looks them both up and down, eyes narrowed with scrutiny, then sighs and says, “Barbaric.”

“Ooh, isn’t it?” Locke, as usual, is the only not even pretending to be subtle. “You think they’ll let me watch next time?”

“I doubt it,” Pigsy mutters, pretending very hard that he doesn’t notice her leering at people who aren’t him. “Unless they’re planning on using you for target practice.”

The barb lacks his usual wit; it is cold and cutting, a flash of anger quickly smothered. Still, Monkey snorts like it was just another one of his usual wisecracks, ill-advised but harmless.

“Tempting,” he says. “We could use some practice on real monsters.”

Locke chuckles, spreads her arms as wide as her shackles will allow. “A small price to pay if it’ll nab me a front-row ticket to all those rippling god-muscles.”

Never one to resist a little flattery, Monkey flexes and preens. Then he remembers who he’s talking to, stops, and scowls.

“They’re not for demon consumption!”

“Never said I was talking about _yours_.”

“Process of elimination,” Monkey shoots back, then elbows Sandy pointedly in the ribs. “She doesn’t have any.”

It’s a fair point. Sandy’s body was built for speed and stealth, not strength and power. If she looked like him, all rippling muscles and bulging biceps, she wouldn’t be able to do half the things she does with ease now. In this, if very little else, she’ll gladly take herself the way she is.

So, unoffended, she elbows him right back. “Still beat you.”

“Uh, no, you didn’t.”

“Fairly certain I did.”

“Okay, okay.” Tripitaka, defusing the situation before it can escalate. By this point in their journey, she’s so used to it that the interruption comes as second nature. “The bigger question is, did it help?”

Sandy ponders. The buzzing in her head starts up again, pain reasserting itself with the effort of thinking, but it’s less than before. She can think through it this time, at least a little, and that—

That says a lot. She swallows, driving back as much of the discomfort as she can.

“I think—”

“Yes.” The Shaman, interrupting with his usual authority. “Your thoughts are clearer and more ordered. Quieter, certainly. And, though your body is clearly fatigued, your mind is rested.” He nods, contemplative and as close to approving as she’s ever seen him. “I would never endorse such primitive barbarism, but its effects on your condition are readily apparent.”

Monkey blinks, surprise overpowering his smugness. “Huh.”

The Shaman almost — _almost_ — smirks. His eyes linger on Sandy’s face for a moment, as though mapping out the lines there, the old and the new, and then he turns to Monkey with a raised brow and a twitching lip.

“Surprised, Monkey King?” His self-satisfaction is almost unbearable, even to Sandy; to Monkey it must be like a thorn stuck deep in his side. “You needn’t be. My priority on this journey is the well-being of my charge. If your mindless brutality offers a means of support that I cannot, I will happily concede it.”

“Huh,” Monkey says again; he doesn’t look any less suspicious, but his shoulders are losing some of their tension. “You know, you’re a lot less of an insufferable jackass when you’re conceding things. Do it a few more times, maybe we’ll talk.”

The Shaman, unsurprisingly, does not dignify that with a response.

*

And so it goes, for the rest of the day.

Walking and trying too hard not to think, then stopping and sparring and not thinking at all. Sandy pushes her mind to its limits when they walk, then pushes her body when they rest, one and then the other, like the dual effects of heat and cold on cracked stone.

Little wonder, then, that she is utterly exhausted by nightfall.

The evening meal is a quiet affair, subdued and strained. Sandy’s not the only one feeling the weight of her exertions; a quick glance around their makeshift camp shows the same weary lines on all their faces. Even Monkey, infamous for his stamina, looks just about ready to drop where he stands. That’s not as surprising as it might normally be; with a guilty pang, Sandy supposes he’s not used to keeping his body engaged all the time, even when it should be resting. All that sparring, even with his stubbornness, has taken a toll.

Her body is feeling it too, of course, but it’s different in her, different because she’s already fighting so many other kinds of discomfort. The ache in her bones, her joints, her muscles, is almost a reprieve; after the splitting of her mind, the ringing in her ears, the pulsing, pounding headache when she tries to push her thoughts too hard... after all that, the uncomplicated physicality of too much exercise feels like the life being poured back into her. It’s a wonderful luxury, she thinks, more than a little delirious, being simply _tired_.

She offers to take the first watch, of course, even as she knows Tripitaka and the Shaman will never allow such a thing.

“You are trying my patience,” the Shaman says flatly, then throws up his hands and leaves it to Tripitaka to talk some sense into her.

Which she does, of course, because Sandy could never deny her anything, no matter how unreasonable (and this is not that, however badly she wishes it was), or how foolish or how deeply terrifying. Could never say no to her eager, open face, even when it was a boy’s and a monk’s; it is so much more endearing now, with its soft edges and gentle warmth, and sometimes looking at it makes Sandy want to leap from the nearest mountain just to see if falling forever makes her stomach leap in the same way as looking at her.

“Sandy.” Firm, strong, no hesitation. No doubt she and the Shaman spent some time talking to each other about this, in the moments where Sandy was away sparring with Monkey. “You need to sleep.”

“Don’t need anything.” She tries to smile, tries to be reassuring, fails at both. “Gods don’t need—”

“Yes, they do!”

It’s not quite anger, the keen edge in her voice, but exhaustion and frustration make it sound terribly close. It twists the leaping in Sandy’s stomach into something far more unpleasant. Makes her remember the North Water, all the tiny and not-so-tiny ways Tripitaka yelled at her for no reason, so afraid of seeing her secrets revealed that she would do anything to distance herself.

“Tripitaka—”

“They do,” Tripitaka says again, softer but no less sharp. “And you need it more than most. So please, _please_ stop trying to fight it.”

Sandy decides this is probably not the best moment to point out that fighting is the only thing that has worked to keep her mind quiet, that it helps where kindness and compassion only make her feel small and worthless.

It isn’t the will to not fight that sways her, but the weariness, bone-deep, on Tripitaka’s beautiful face. Sandy would claw and kick and struggle against her own exhaustion to the very last, until it killed her or she beat it into submission, whichever came first. She has fought worse, and always won, and she has so much more to lose now than she ever did before. She would fight, wants to fight, the whole night through. But she cannot — _will_ not — force Tripitaka to suffer along with her.

“I...” She wets her lips, closes her eyes and swallows down everything she wants for herself. “I suppose a little sleep wouldn’t hurt.”

Lie. Every word a lie. She knows that it will hurt, quite terribly, and she hates how much that frightens her.

Tripitaka hugs her. Even more gentle than usual, instinctively avoiding the bruises that sparring with Monkey painted under her clothes, but with a passion that makes it seem almost fierce.

“You’re surrounded by friends,” she reminds her, and that same ferocity bleeds into her voice too. “And, uh, maybe a couple of enemies too. But they’re harmless. And we’re all here for you.”

“Some more than others,” Monkey mutters from his side of the fire. He’s setting up his bedroll, scowling and eyeing Locke with suspicion. “If you kill us in our sleep...”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she says, holding up her manacled hands. “Demons need their beauty rest too, you, know. Can’t all just get up, shake out our perfect hair, and start the day on a five-minute nap.”

“Just one of your many, many weaknesses,” he snorts, amused and not-so-subtly flattered in spite of himself.

Tripitaka ignores them both. Arms still locked around Sandy’s waist, she whispers, “ _Courage_ ,” like the word has magical powers.

And perhaps it does. Sandy thinks of the Jade Palace, of the Shaman urging her to protect her broken mind, to find courage in the face of her endless, crippling fear, and she thinks of Tripitaka, so unshakeable, so utterly convinced that such a thing — _courage_ — must exist in her somewhere. And she thinks it is much harder to believe it’s there when she has to dig down and find it, when she has nowhere left to hide, no more walking or sparring or straining, when the only thing between her and the maelstrom in her head is ‘ _goodnight_ ’.

They lie down together, Tripitaka still holding her close, and Sandy feels sort of sheltered and suffocated at the same time, like she’s being chained down for her own protection. Tripitaka’s arms are slender, but deceptively strong, and her warmth surrounds her like the mist and vapour Sandy once used as a blanket.

“Wake me if anything happens,” Tripitaka whispers. Her voice is a little rougher now, from lying down and perhaps from something a little deeper too. “Promise me you won’t keep it to yourself this time.”

Sandy looks around their little campsite, their strange little group. So many pairs of eyes staring at her, gods and demons both. Not like in the tavern the last two nights, just her and Tripitaka, no-one else to see or hear, no other witnesses to her terrible weakness. It’s almost laughable, really, Tripitaka’s fear that she would keep it to herself; she couldn’t, even if she tried. Someone is bound to hear her if she screams or cries, no matter how hard she tries to smother it.

Better, she decides reluctantly, if it’s the one who’s heard it all before, the one person who can hold her down and not make her scream even louder.

“I won’t,” she says, a breathless whisper. “And, um, sorry.”

And she is. Deeply so. Because they both know it’s inevitable, because Tripitaka wouldn’t be asking her to promise if she didn’t know it was.

Still, though she must know that, Tripitaka shakes her head, breath tickling the back of Sandy’s neck. “No apologies,” she says, not for the first time. “You know that.”

And she pulls her in a little closer and holds her a little tighter, and her breathing grows slow and steady, more for Sandy’s benefit than her own, and—

And then, quiet.

So much quiet.

 _Too_ much quiet.

The others fidget briefly as they ready themselves for sleep, but it doesn’t last. Sandy has never been afraid of silence, has always used it to her advantage, but she is certainly unsettled by it now. She’s lived through this moment a thousand times, the descending quiet as her strange new family settles in for the night, but this is the first time it heralds dread instead of solace and warmth, the first time she looks around at closing eyes and nodding heads and feels isolated and scared.

Tripitaka’s arm grows heavy around her middle, her mouth slack and open against her neck. Sandy closes her eyes, struggles to match her breathing to the beat of Tripitaka’s heart.

In, out, in, out. Steady. Slow.

Easier to let herself drift, she finds, when her attention is on something else. Another lesson learned from her sparring matches with Monkey. Physicality, rhythm, structure. Focus on what is there, what she can feel and see. Don’t try to think, don’t try _not_ to think. Don’t do anything but count heartbeats and keep breathing and—

And fall—

And drift—

And _fall_ —

And sleep.

*

And _wake_.

Too soon, too much, too—

Gasping, disoriented, confused. Her throat hurts, razed raw with the most excruciating pain, but she doesn’t remember screaming. Doesn’t remember anything at all, at least for a moment. Not where she is, not who she is, only that she’s hot and cold all at once, sweat breaking out all over her body, shuddering and shaking on the brink of something awful.

She lurches upright, feels the world pitch and tilt under her, feels her body start to react, horror and pain and something else, all taking hold of her at once. Pain everywhere, a ball of razor-wire in her chest, her throat, wracking spasms in her stomach, twisting and seizing and _screaming_ —

And it should be a comfort, that the screams are coming from her body instead of her mind, but it’s not, it’s not, it’s—

And then she’s on her knees in the dirt and the grass, retching, heaving, violent and visceral and—

 _Helpless_.

And she can’t shout or sob, she can’t move or breathe, but it doesn’t matter. The violence speaks for itself, the crippling force, the pain, the horror, all of it. Her throat tearing, her stomach spasming, her chest threatening to burst, every inch of her sick, shaking body calling out for help, even as it keeps her captive.

And then — blessedly and also terrifyingly — she is not alone.

Small, strong hands at her back. A voice in her ear. A name—

 _Her_ name.

And the seizures subside for just a moment, clarity cutting through the mess like sunlight through clouds, just long enough for the world to reshape itself around her, enough for a small piece of her mind to put itself back together, enough for her to remember—

“Tripitaka...”

And then it starts up again, made worse by the attempt to speak, and she cannot count the parts of her that are trying to tear themselves apart.

And Tripitaka stays with her the whole time, pulling back her hair with those small strong hands, stroking her neck and her back, soft and slow and warm, whispering her name in her ear, “ _Sandy_ ,” over and over and over, until it’s all she hears, all she knows, all she feels.

And it is a lifetime before it ends, a lifetime of pain and brutality, but when it finally stops, the horror shutting off like flowing water and returning her body to her, she has enough of a grip on herself to remember who and where she is.

It is—

She doesn’t know if it’s enough.

But it brings comfort to her mind, even as her body reels.

Slowly, aching all over, she lifts her head.

And there she is, kneeling beside her, visibly frightened but so brave, so strong, so beautiful. _Tripitaka_ , her tether, her anchor, her port in this most violent of storms, and Sandy wants to fall into her arms and cry with relief, but she can’t seem to move her limbs.

Tripitaka doesn’t embrace her, but she looks her in the eye and holds her gaze, and that is something.

“Sandy,” she whispers, fearful and a little nauseated but still herself. “Are you okay? Can you breathe?”

Sandy doesn’t know. She tries it a couple of times, feeling out the pains in her chest as they subside along with the rest of the misery, then exhales a shaky, affirming sigh.

“Yes.” She shudders, drained all over. “Sorry. Don’t know what happened.”

“It’s okay. The Shaman said that it might.” She glances at one of the motionless shapes around the fire, as if to punctuate the point, then turns her attention back to Sandy. “Do you remember what you were dreaming?”

Sandy doesn’t really want to try. Remembering is dangerous, thinking is dangerous, and she feels the effects of it so viscerally in her body that there’s no strength left in her mind to try and reach the place where it started. If she was dreaming, she doesn’t know what. After the last time, it’s probably a blessing.

“Not sure. Throat hurts. Raw. So probably screaming again.” Her stomach clenches a warning, like she’s brushing too close to something she shouldn’t touch. She swallows hard, eyes squeezed shut until the feeling passes. “Probably shouldn’t try to think about it too much. Don’t want to start again.”

“Yeah.” Tripitaka swallows as well, no doubt fighting a sympathetic reflex. “Good idea. Here, hold still...”

And she turns Sandy around, ever so gently, then sweeps the tangled mass of her hair up into her hands and sets to work trying to braid it.

Sandy closes her eyes, tries very hard to ignore the discomfort. Tripitaka has many talents, at least by human standards, but it’s rather excruciatingly obvious that she was raised in a monastery, and by people with no need for hair care. She’s lived as long as Sandy’s known her with little to none of her own, and what little knowledge she might have once had seems to have vanished a long, long time ago.

Still, Sandy doesn’t complain. She holds as still as she can — no easy task with Tripitaka yanking and tugging like she’s punishing her for something — and tries to hold her stomach and her thoughts down.

“You’re going to make me go back to sleep again, aren’t you?” she asks, when she trusts herself to speak. “Even after this?”

Tripitaka grimaces. “The Shaman doesn’t want you using these episodes as an excuse not to.”

Sandy pouts. She knows this to be true, but that doesn’t make her any less unhappy to hear it said.

She takes a deep breath, a moment to steady herself — her body, for once, far more than her mind — and tries to breathe through the pain of Tripitaka tugging on her scalp. She sort of wants to say something about it, to ask her to be gentler, at least, but she wouldn’t know how to phrase herself. Tact is not her strength, even on a good day, and Tripitaka is doing this with the purest of intentions, with nothing but kindness in her heart. Sandy doesn’t want to ruin that, she just wants to get out of it with her head intact.

Fortunately — or, perhaps, unfortunately — the decision is taken out of her hands before she can try.

“Sorry to interrupt a lovely moment...”

A rough, serrated sort of voice, coming from behing them. Sandy turns, thrown, to find Locke watching them, looking anything but sorry.

She’s surprisingly cheerful for someone wide awake in the middle of the night, sitting with her back against a nearby tree and her chain still tethered to Monkey. He’s wrapped it around his wrist a couple of times to hold her in place, and seems quite content that that’s secure enough because he’s sleeping as deep and peacefully as he ever does. Dead to the world; Sandy desperately wishes the same held true for herself.

“We’re busy,” Tripitaka snaps, less annoyed by Locke’s presence as she is by the interruption, the distraction from an already difficult task. “What do you want?”

“Oh, nothing in particular.” She studies her nails. “Only, you’re making a right bloody mess of that.”

Tripitaka makes an offended sound, and pulls on Sandy’s hair a little harder. Sandy swallows a whine.

“I’m going for practical,” Tripitaka says. “Not fashionable.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” She wrinkles her nose, like Tripitaka’s failure is a personal slight against all things good and decent in the world. “But you’re not really achieving either, now, are you?”

“It’s fine.” Tripitaka is scowling now; Sandy can hear it in her voice, even without turning around to see it for herself. “We don’t need ribbons and bows. It’s just to keep it out of her face if this happens again.”

Locke snorts her disapproval. “Won’t do a bleeding thing, that,” she points out. “It’ll come loose on a gentle breeze, if it even survives that long.” She holds out her arms, as well as her shackles allow. “Here. Let me have a go.”

Tripitaka growls. Low, dangerous, desperately protective; it’s touching, if rather futile.

“Look,” she says. “This is unpleasant enough. We don’t need you sitting there and criticising every little—”

“Wasn’t criticising.” To Sandy’s surprise, she actually sounds sincere. “I was trying to help. Hand on my withered old heart. Not my fault you’re too stubborn to tell the difference.”

“You.” Sandy’s throat still hurts a little, but she gets the word out well enough. “Help. Why?”

Locke shrugs. The chains rattle a little, but not enough to disturb Monkey. “Might as well, seeing as how I’m stuck with you lot anyway.” She flashes Sandy an odd look, pointed but sort of subdued. “Besides, if you’re miserable, everyone’s bloody miserable. And I don’t much like being miserable.”

Tripitaka makes another warning sound. “If you think I’m going to let you touch her, you’re even more deluded than we thought.”

Sandy massages her temples. Everything hurts, inside and outside, and this is the last thing she needs. She doesn’t like the idea of Locke touching her any more than Tripitaka does — especially like this, with her back and her neck exposed — but she likes even less the idea of having to mediate between an over-protective if well-meaning human and a sardonic, bemused demon.

“Tripitaka.” She sighs, turns her head to look her in the eye. “Not to offend, but you are rather terrible at this.”

“I’m out of practice!” She looks more sad than the moment calls for, like maybe she has another reason for being so defensive. “You didn’t even want her with us in the first place. Now you want to play nice with her, just because she’s better with a hairbrush?”

Locke smirks, taking that as she does everything else anyone says about her: like a it’s a grand compliment.

“We’ve all got our talents, little monk,” she says. “I’ll take fashion sense over self-righteousness and moralising any day. Way less boring.” She looks back to Sandy, dismissing the human like she was never there at all, and makes a come-hither gesture as best she can with her hands bound. “C’mere, then. Get that thing done proper.”

“Don’t want to play nice with her,” Sandy says to Tripitaka. “Just want it done so you can force me to go back to sleep like we both know you want to.”

She doesn’t mean to sound as bitter as she does. Knows that Tripitaka is right, her and the Shaman both, knows that even she can’t survive on only half-nights of interrupted sleep for the rest of her life. Knows that she needs to tend her mind, just as he told her to, needs to crawl back into her bedroll and sleep until morning. Knows all of this, and resents it at the same time.

“I wasn’t going to force you,” Tripitaka says, devastatingly low. “I’d never force you to do anything. I was just going to... encourage.”

“Different word. Same meaning.” From Tripitaka, at least; they both know Sandy cannot deny her anything she ‘encourages’, any more than if she held her down by force. “You sound like the Shaman when you encourage. Even when it’s for my own good. I just... I like it better when you sound like you.”

Tripitaka looks a little heartbroken. “All right,” she says quietly. “Then I won’t say anything else. I’ll just... I’ll just go back to bed. And you can join me whenever you’re ready. Okay?”

She doesn’t even ask her to promise this time. _Trust_ , Sandy thinks, and wonders why the word makes her shudder.

Wonders, also, why she feels compelled to reach for her, even as she moves to leave. Dishevelled, disastrous, she must look a terrible mess, but she can’t control the urgency in her, the sudden desperate need to connect before they separate. She fumbles, finds Tripitaka’s arm, and holds on for just a moment like it’s her lifeline.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, breathless and a little lost. “I’m sorry, I...”

“No apologies,” Tripitaka says extricating herself ever so gently from Sandy’s grip. “You know that.”

And she shifts a judicious distance away from where they were and lies back down like nothing happened. Or almost nothing. This time, for the first time, she lies down with her back to her, and she does not turn around.

“Touchy, your lot,” Locke remarks carelessly. “Come on, then. Get a move on.”

Sandy does as she’s told, willing but reluctant. It is a strange sensation, letting a demon touch her, exposing her back, her neck, her head, exposing every part of her and trusting it will not be injured or exploited. She feels vulnerable and uncomfortable, and a part of her, small but slowly blooming, feels brave.

This kind of courage is easy, she supposes. It’s not so different from the way she feels when she spars with Monkey, her mind closed and her body open, like every breath is a challenge, like every moment is a study in anticipation and reaction. Locke is terribly strong, but she is also bound; Sandy may not have much of an advantage in her current condition, but at least her movement is unimpaired. She would have the advantage if it came down to it, either to fight or to run.

Doesn’t need to, though. Demon or not, Locke does precisely what she says, pulling Sandy’s hair back and working through the tangles as though it’s second nature, as though they do this sort of thing all the time.

“You are better than Tripitaka,” Sandy observes, testing the flavour of conversation on her tongue, of reaching out to this demon who was once her enemy. “Plenty of time to practice, I’d imagine, while you were driving good people to poverty?”

It’s not meant to be friendly, but Locke seems to take it that way regardless. “Nothing wrong with a taste for the finer things in life,” she says. “You lot wouldn’t be half so boring if you’d embrace it once in a while.”

“Difficult to find the time,” Sandy says dourly, “when you’ve spent your whole life forced into hiding.”

Locke huffs a little, but doesn’t argue. She’s silent for a short while, focusing on the task at hand, and Sandy lets her mind wander. The camp is quiet, everyone settled and still. Monkey, fast asleep with Locke’s chain around his wrist. Pigsy, standing watch a short way away, gazing off into the distance, seemingly oblivious to what’s going on behind him. The Shaman, dozing lightly on the other side of the fire, at perfect peace, like there’s nothing strange at all in sharing food and sleeping among his former enemies.

And then Tripitaka. Perfectly still except for the rhythm of her breath, but Sandy can’t figure out whether she’s sleeping or waiting. She’s not sure which she’d prefer.

Behind her, Locke breaks her momentary silence with a throaty chuckle.

“Well, well, well,” she muses, seemingly to herself. “Doesn’t it all make bloody sense now?”

Sandy stiffens. She doesn’t like the sound of that one bit. “What does?”

“You. Pretty much.” She shrugs. Sandy feels the movement all through her shoulders, her back. “All those years, you evaded me. Killed my best guards, messed with my best plans, made a right bloody nuisance of yourself. All those years trying to put you in the ground, never got more than a scratch on you. Then all of a sudden, the Monkey King reappears. Falls out of the sky like your own little miracle, and boom! Gotcha! Him and you, together, like a pair of rats in a bloody trap.”

It’s not a pleasant memory, but at least it is complete. Sandy suppresses a shudder, chilled down to her bones as she recalls the damp, cold cart rattling back to the palace.

“You tricked us,” she says flatly.

She closes her eyes as she says it, and tries not to think too hard about it. The part where it wasn’t really _Locke_ who tricked them. Wasn’t her who caught them and locked them up and brought them home like animals to the slaughter. It took Sandy a long time to get over that particular betrayal, to learn to look Pigsy in the eye without the need to flinch, to search for the moment he would turn around and—

 _No_.

He’s changed. He’s different. He’s earned her respect now, and her affection, and she will not indulge those memories now, just because his former lover is pushing her buttons.

Locke is still rambling. Maybe oblivious to Sandy’s dark thoughts, maybe just ignoring them; either way, she keeps to her own tangent.

“Tricked _him_ , sure,” she’s saying. “Him and the little monk. Always figured you were too smart for that, though. Knew the game too well.”

Another shrug. It resonates and makes Sandy shudder. “We all have bad days.”

“That’s your excuse?” She laughs. “Nah. Had to be something else, to let you get so sloppy. So I got to thinking, maybe you had a thing for your new friend. I mean, the real-life Monkey King! Must’ve been like a fairy tale come to life for you gods, eh? Especially for one like you. All those years waiting for the bloody revolution to start, and all of a sudden there he is, in the flesh, all rippling biceps and flowing locks. Can’t say I’d blame you for being a bit smitten.”

Sandy chuckles, shakes her head. “He tried to kill me when we first met. It wasn’t the most endearing first impression.”

“I dunno. Some people are into that.” She makes an amused noise, but blessedly doesn’t dwell any further on it. “Got it half-right, though, didn’t I? Less rippling and flowing, more dusty old books, but hey, who am I to judge?”

Heat scorches the back of Sandy’s neck. She hates that Locke is perfectly situated to see it.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” she mutters, rather more sullen than sincere. “Don’t even know what ‘smitten’ means.”

“Oh, really?” Her voice makes it quite clear she doesn’t believe her for an instant. “Funny, that. You do a pretty good impression of it when you get all starry-eyed over your precious monk.”

Though she knows Locke can’t see her face, Sandy scowls. “No.”

“No?” Amusement thickens her voice, makes it rougher and even more unpleasant than usual. “So you didn’t let her sweet-talk you into hitching a lift against your better judgement? Didn’t let yourself get baited and caught, all for the sake of her pretty smile?”

“Wasn’t thinking about her smile,” Sandy mutters sourly. “ _His_ smile. Any smile. Boy or girl. Monk or no monk.” She coughs; Locke doesn’t need to know any of this. “I was charged with helping hi— with helping _her_. And I couldn’t do that if she was captured. Couldn’t save them alone. Couldn’t fight you all by myself.”

“No? Managed pretty well up till then.” It’s an observation, nothing more, but it’s tinged with something ever so slightly impressed. It only lasts a moment, though, and then she sighs and grows unexpectedly sober. “It’ll be the death of you, though. You understand that, right? Sure as anything, it will.”

Sandy does not flinch. “Not if my mind does it first,” she says, feeling hollow.

Locke laughs. “Please. Old pain doesn’t kill you.” There is a seriousness in her now that Sandy has never heard before. Not that she’s had much opportunity to sit down and talk with her like this, but still. “Makes you powerful. You build an army out of people with old pain, you’ll never lose. There’s no motivation in the world quite like it. Believe me, I’d know.”

Speaking from experience, clearly, though Sandy can’t help wondering from which side of the line. It is no secret that Locke has inflicted the most terrible suffering on more gods and humans than either of them can name, but there is a hardness in her voice now that makes her wonder — perhaps for the first time in all the years they’ve fought each other — if she saw the other side of that a time or two as well. Deserved, most certainly, but nonetheless.

“Got enough motivation already,” Sandy says, shaking off the thought. “Don’t need more pain for that.”

“Oh, I bet you have. Protect the monk at all costs, right? Keep her safe, even if it means throwing yourself in front of a cart you know is bound for misery. Brilliant bloody motivation, that is.”

“I was charged with helping her,” Sandy says, growing angry. “Protecting her. I have a _duty_ —”

“You have a lovesick heart. That’s what you have, you daft little thing.”

Sandy flushes again, if possible even hotter than before. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“About your little monk? True enough.” She chuckles, like maybe that’s only half-true. “About you? A tad more than you’d be comfortable hearing, I’d wager. But about _this_?”

She laughs again, but it’s much heavier now, with no humour at all. Sandy turns her head a little, finds her gazing at Pigsy, eyes bright with a mix of so many things it hurts to try and count them all. Grief, certainly, and a dash of pain. Anger, the twisted kind that comes from deep inside and throws itself in all the wrong directions. Maybe a little guilt as well, though Sandy suspects that’s too optimistic.

Locke doesn’t notice her watching, or if she does she hides it remarkably well. She sighs to herself, unguarded in the way of all people who think they’re alone, then carries on as though she never stopped speaking.

“About this,” she says again, much quieter, “I could fill a book with what I know.”

Sandy turns her face away, feeling ashamed but not entirely sure why. “I’m sorry.”

This time, when Locke laughs, she sounds more like herself.

“Typical god. Always apologising, even when it’s not your fault.” Still, her hands grow a little lighter on Sandy’s hair as she resumes her task. “I’m not asking for sympathy, you bloody fool. I’m offering it. You can fight as hard as you like against this rubbish inside your head, but nothing'll kill you slower or more painfully than too many feelings.” There is a tremor in her voice. Barely audible, but there; Sandy catches it and holds on tight. “That’s a fact.”

Sandy doesn’t know what to say to that. Doesn’t know if she should say anything, if it’s safe to think hard enough to speak at all.

It’s not secret that her devotion to Tripitaka runs terribly deep; there’s a reason she is her anchor, her emotional tether, the only thing capable of grounding her to herself when her head is trying so hard to shatter itself into pieces.

But it is also no secret that things have changed between them since the North Water, that trust and warmth come a little harder to her now than they did before. There are so many unsettled things between them now, and Sandy doesn’t know where she’d even begin to pick them apart, twist what she’s feeling into _feelings_.

She is frightened of too much already. To look into her heart, the place where Tripitaka burns brightest...

Her stomach churns, unsettled all over again by thinking about it.

“The way I am,” she says unhappily, “even _thinking_ could kill me.”

“Be a quicker, easier end if it did,” Locke says, with strange seriousness. “I’d take thinking over feeling any day of the bloody week.” Then, not waiting for an answer, she taps Sandy on the back of the neck and pulls away. “You’re done. Back to bed with you.”

For once, Sandy doesn’t hesitate. She’s so relieved to be free from the conversation that even sleep seems almost like an escape.

She curls up beside Tripitaka again, though she knows that’s not the wisest move. Would be far better, she knows, to put some distance between them, to seek out the most distant corner of their camp, let her body give the illusion of peace but only pretend to be sleeping, to hide and hide and hide like her instincts want so badly. That would be the clever thing, the sneaky thing. Tripitaka, usually a late riser with her mortal need for more rest than her companions, would never know the difference.

Oh, but she _promised_. And she couldn’t endure the betrayal on Tripitaka’s face if she suspected she was deceived.

And that—

Yes.

Too many feelings. Too many reasons not to want to cause pain to the person she needs the most, the person she has always needed, even before they met. Too much inside of her, head and heart and both at the same time, and she hates Locke for making her confused, hates her because she’s not really confused at all.

She buries her face in Tripitaka’s shoulder. Hides from the clamour in her mind, growing louder and louder as her head grows heavier. Hides from the churning in her stomach, the ever-present threat of a different kind of chaos, louder and more violent but somehow less terrifying. Hides from the fluttering in her heart, the way its rhythm matches Tripitaka’s without even trying, the way it finds its anchor like a ship in the dark, steering by the stars like they’re written under her skin. Hides from the way it makes her not want to hide quite so much.

She breathes slowly. Steadily, in and out, catching the rhythm of Tripitaka’s pulse, the way she did before, the way she does so often by instinct.

Tries not to think.

Tries, with Locke’s words drumming against her ribs, not to feel.

Closes her eyes, and prays that the morning comes swiftly.

*


	7. Chapter 7

*

The morning does come swiftly, though not without some discomfort.

Sandy wakes, disoriented but herself, to the pale glow of sunrise. She’s light-headed, more than a little dizzy, and her head throbs with the now-familiar pain that comes with too much thinking or dreaming or remembering. No recollection of what she might have dreamed after she went back to sleep, but if she holds herself completely still she’s sure she can taste something terrifying on her tongue.

The others are already awake when she rises, and gathered around a small, flickering fire. Pigsy is hunched over the flames, tasked as usual with making breakfast, with Locke offering ‘helpful’ suggestions over his shoulder. Monkey, sitting by himself, is staring down at a map of their route with hunched shoulders and a confused, mostly vacant expression. Tripitaka and the Shaman are seated together a short distance away, talking quietly amongst themselves.

Sandy only makes out the odd word from their conversation, but what she hears is calm and casual and — most importantly — not about her. That part, more than anything else in the world, helps her to relax a little. They look so normal, almost friendly; Tripitaka is all eagerness and curiosity, and the Shaman has a long-suffering, patient look on his face as he answers question after question.

“But is it your name,” Tripitaka is asking as Sandy approaches, “or your title?”

“As I have said, at great length,” the Shaman sighs, “it is _both_.”

Tripitaka, looking more befuddled by the moment, seems entirely unable to fathom this.

“I don’t...” She gestures vaguely. “Even the Scholar had a name.”

The Shaman quirks a brow. “Needless excess is practically a requisite for your species.”

Sandy can’t help herself; she chuckles.

Tripitaka leaps to her feet at the sound of her voice, the conversation forgotten in a heartbeat. Any ill feeling that might have lingered after last night seems to have vanished now, smothered by sleep and melted by the early morning sun; she looks well-rested and comfortable, and genuinely delighted to see Sandy awake and upright. Joy and affection wash over her face, and just the faintest flicker of worry, practically automatic by now. Sandy wonders if she’ll ever be able to let it go completely, even after this is all over.

“Sandy!” Her eyes catch the fire of the rising sun. She always looks so beautiful in the morning; always did, even when she was a boy. “You’re awake!”

“I am?” She’s aiming for sardonic, though she suspects she probably just sounds confused. “Odd. I thought I was sleepwalking.”

Tripitaka swats her arm. Playful, easy, but just a little restrained. Holding back, as though she’s afraid of hurting her. She must know such a thing is all but impossible — a human her size could scarcely hurt a fly, much less a god, even a damaged one — and yet she still touches her like she’s made of cracked crystal, delicate and much too fragile.

“Stop that,” she chides, though the grin on her face speaks a very different language. “How are you feeling this morning?”

Sandy considers the question. Tries to stay focused on the physical, the tangible. It’s the easiest way to keep hold of herself, she’s learned, and the safest as well. Dangerous to peer into her head and try to find the shadows of dreams or memories. Dangerous to wonder how deep her thoughts or feelings go. Dangerous even to think about thinking of it; she has to work very hard to silence the whisper in her mind, the static hum vibrating up and down her nerves, has to turn every ounce of attention she has into her limbs and her body, to what she knows is true and solid.

Sore muscles. Stiff shoulders, stiff arms. Stomach hurting. Sore throat, voice a little bit hoarse. Could be from screaming or sickness or seizures. Could be from too much time training with Monkey. Could be anything, but at least it feels real.

Decides not to mention it, whatever the source. Doesn’t want them to blame Monkey for working her too hard and take away the only thing that actually helps.

“I’m all right,” she says, and pretends not to notice the way the Shaman narrows his eyes.

Tripitaka, being somewhat less perceptive, only smiles. “Good.” She sits back down, still holding Sandy’s arm, all but dragging her down with her. “Feel up to some breakfast?”

“Sustenance is important,” the Shaman says, an order poorly masked as observation. “Though I question the quality of the fare on offer. Do you gods not learn basic culinary skills?”

“I heard that,” Pigsy mutters, poking savagely at the fire. “If you think you can do a better job with what we have, mate, by all means have a go.”

The Shaman coughs, as close to apologetic as he ever gets. “I’m sure it will suffice.”

Pigsy rolls his eyes, but doesn’t bother to retaliate. He swings awkwardly to his feet and circles around, distributing what little he’s managed to cook up. There’s rather less than usual with two extra mouths to feed, but that doesn’t stop him from claiming the largest portion of everything and calling it chef’s privileges. In that, if not in much else, this is no different from the dozens of other meals they’ve shared, just the four of them together on their journey.

He starts a little when he lays eyes on Sandy, visibly perplexed.

“New look?” he asks, handing over her breakfast with a frown.

It takes her a few seconds to figure out what he’s talking about, to recall the braid still keeping her hair out of her face. She flushes, inexplicably embarrassed, and quickly pulls the thing loose, letting her hair fall back over her eyes in its usual haphazard way.

“Um. No. There was a... that is, I...” She clears her throat, more ashamed with every word. “Nothing. Doesn’t matter. Just needed it out of the way, that’s all. Your... uh, your ex-demon, she...”

“That what you’re calling me now?” Still seated by the fire, still attached to Monkey, Locke cackles. “And here was me thinking we’d evolved to first names.” As usual, she’s more amused than offended. Sandy doesn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed. “Least we could do, after staying up all night braiding each other’s hair and gossiping about our feelings.”

And just like that, Pigsy isn’t the only one staring. Sandy hides her face behind her hair, seemingly wilder than ever following its brief imprisonment, and mumbles, “That’s not what happened.”

“Course not, love. Just a spot of hair-care and harmless chit-chat. In the middle of the night. As you do.”

From his spot on the other side of the camp, Monkey snorts. He’s so amused, he almost seems to forget for a moment that she’s a demon and he hates her.

“Should’ve kept it tied back,” he quips to Sandy. “Then you wouldn’t be able to blame it getting in your face every time I land a hit on you.”

“Don’t need to blame it,” Sandy pouts. She’s certain she’s flushing now, and keeps her eyes moodily on the ground. “Why are we all talking about this?”

Tripitaka touches her hand, the contact igniting sparks on her skin; Sandy looks up, in spite of herself, to find her eyes. They’re big and bright, so warm that she wants to drown in them.

“It put a little colour back in your cheeks,” Tripitaka says, and her smile is utterly devastating, a vision more dazzling than the sun. “Made you look more like yourself.”

Sandy supposes that should make her feel better. Should make her feel more connected, tethered not just to Tripitaka but to herself, to her mind and her memories and to her shame-flushing body too. Should make her feel normal, or at least the kind of not-normal that is _her_ normal, the kind where she is different, she is _other_ , but she is one of them just the same. Teasing, affectionate, like this is just another morning.

But as hard as she tries, she can’t make herself feel that way. Just feels distanced and lost, acutely aware of how much she is not like that right now.

She hasn’t seen her reflection in a good few days, and perhaps that’s a blessing because she suspects she’d have a hard time recognising it. _Herself_ , Tripitaka says, but all that means to Sandy is that she knows her own name and the names of the people around her. She doesn’t know what _herself_ is supposed to look like, what it’s supposed to mean in a moment like this, and she’s not entirely sure she wants to.

“Myself. ” The word tastes stale and dry, like ash or smoke on her tongue. She ducks her head, hiding her face, her eyes, everything. She can feel that precious colour draining back out of her, vanished too quickly, just like her fleeting moments of clarity. “I’m glad one of us remembers what that is.”

Tripitaka doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that. She doesn’t stop touching her or looking at her, but suddenly her smile isn’t quite so warm. It makes the whole world feel colder and a bit less welcoming, like a great looming monster sharpening its teeth in readiness for the dark to fall.

“You’ll remember,” Tripitaka says in a tender whisper. “I promise.”

“Foolish to make promises you can’t keep,” the Shaman points out.

He’s gazing thoughtfully into his bowl, as if trying to figure out what’s in it, but he lifts his head when Tripitaka turns to face him. The warmth is entirely gone from her now, replaced by something vibrant and scathing.

“I don’t,” she says, in a voice so hard it barely sounds like her at all.

The Shaman quirks a brow: amusement, definitely, and perhaps a grudging measure of respect. Hard not to feel that way, Sandy thinks, when Tripitaka could shake the earth with her faith.

“As you say, little human,” he says softly, and goes back to frowning at his breakfast.

Looking suddenly pleased with herself, Tripitaka turns back to Sandy. Smiles again, and the warmth slowly flows back into her face.

“I promise,” she says again.

Sandy doesn’t know if she believes her, but she certainly feels touched, by the words and the warmth both. It's hard not to feel that way when faced with so much affection, so much brightness that burns, that it makes even the rising sun seem to fade by comparison. Feelings or no feelings, she thinks fiercely, how could anyone look at Tripitaka and not be awestruck?

“You...” She swallows, hoarse and desperately parched. “You are...”

And she thinks _radiant_ , and she thinks _resplendent_ , and she blushes and—

And her tongue ties itself in knots with the effort of keeping those feelings inside.

And Tripitaka beams, bright and breathtaking and utterly oblivious, and says, “Yeah, I know.”

*

So, bit by bit, day by day, they settle into a routine.

Breakfast, then walking, then food, then more walking, then more food and then sleep. 

Day after day, and on the surface of it there’s no difference from the way it was before, when it was just the four of them in search of the scrolls. The same quiet urgency, the same long silences and long arguments, the same dull rhythm of their boots on grass or stone or sand. Monkey at the front, Pigsy at the back, the rest of them at various points between. Step by step, minutes into hours, hours into days, distance and time bleeding in rhythm with the sun, painting its progress across the horizon.

And Sandy holds the fractures in her head together as best she can, working endlessly to keep her mind empty and her body engaged, to embrace the parts of her that can still function and quiet the parts that can’t. She spars with Monkey whenever they stop, keeps her eyes on the horizon when they’re travelling, focuses all the time on holding her thoughts down. It’s an effort, and it gets harder and harder with each hour, each day.

Tripitaka pretends not to notice. Pretends very badly. Tells her, in quiet stolen moments, that she’s doing well, that she is strong and courageous, that she is _good_ , and Sandy wants so desperately to believe her, only her eyes — always the most expressive part of her — whisper a thousand truths that sound nothing like the words from her mouth.

She takes to peering down at her reflection when they pass a body of water, trying in vain to remind herself of what how she should look, what _herself_ truly means. Tries to find the brave soul that makes Tripitaka proud in the face that stares back at her, but it is so pale and the lines are so deep and so obvious, she thinks Tripitaka must be hallucinating if she sees anything but fear and fatigue.

She still doesn’t know what _herself_ means, but she knows she doesn’t recognise it in that face, in her pale skin and pale hair and pale eyes. Paler and paler every time she looks, it seems. Tired and miserable, and so much older than a god should ever look. It makes her sad, makes her ache in places she doesn’t have a name for, and a part of her wants to stop looking but she’s not quite ready to give up the search for something familiar, someone she might recognise, rippling below the surface of still water.

The Shaman notices too, and he is not nearly as subtle about it as Tripitaka. Not as calloused as he usually is, either — no snide remarks, no demands that she work harder or do better or sleep more, he simply shakes his head and suggests she eat more vegetables — and that makes her wonder if perhaps it’s not her fault this time. The journey is long and so exhausting, and Sandy is fighting a dozen little battles with every step; perhaps he’s sensing, at last, that there is nothing she can do but suffer through it and stay alive.

He takes her aside once or twice, and quietly teaches her some meditation techniques. Fingertips pressed to her face in the moments when she needs it the most, he takes the sensation away and lets her go numb for a minute or two, just enough to remember what it’s like to not have to think and feel so much. She usually feels better for a while after they do that, but as with everything else, the relief is frustratingly brief.

And then, inevitably, night. And with it the need for sleep, and the fear shaking her bones until her teeth chatter, until she can’t breathe, until nothing but Tripitaka’s voice and hands and warmth can hold her body still.

She settles into a routine with Locke, too. Night after night, with Monkey’s hand slack and sleep-heavy on her chains, she takes Sandy to a quiet little corner and pulls hair back into a loose, messy braid, in anticipation of the worst. Unhurried, casual and careless, but every night without fail.

“Just in case, eh?” she says. Then, grinning wryly, “Better safe than sorry with your lot.”

Sandy appreciates the sentiment, and her willingness to help, but there’s very little she — or anyone — can really do. From her experience, being prepared for suffering has never helped anyone to endure it any better.

Still, Locke seems to enjoy the task. Genuinely, that is, like it’s the highlight of her evening. It’s rather puzzling, but not as much as one might think; if she’d spent her days being yanked about by a moody Monkey, Sandy might be similarly grateful for a chance to speak freely and mindlessly, and to someone willing to keep their mistrust and resentment to themselves.

Sandy, similarly, finds she doesn’t mind it as much as she should. Certainly, she minds it less than she would ever admit to Tripitaka or the others. It is refreshing, unimaginably so, to have someone speak with her about things other than the state of her mind or body, someone who doesn’t begin every conversation by asking if she feels all right, if she is herself, if she remembers her own name.

Sandy doesn’t necessarily approve of Locke’s preferred conversation topics, but she understands more about emotion than anyone would give her credit for. She’s far from optimistic about the subject — downright cynical, in truth, eyes always locked on Pigsy, shadowed in the dark, as she speaks of heartbreak and the pain that comes from feeling too deeply — but her wisdom, such as it is, helps Sandy understand her own heart a little bit better than she did before.

It’s not a friendship, not by any definition of the word. But it is conversation, plain and pure and honest, and it brings with it a strange sort of intimacy. More, it helps Sandy to forget, for just a couple of minutes every night before the terrors of sleep, that she is broken and lost and doomed.

Pigsy, of course, does not like it one bit. Doesn’t like that his former lover has found a way to make herself useful, doesn’t like that she’s maybe carved out a little place for herself among them. And he _really_ doesn’t like the way his connections and friendships have started to intersect.

Sandy isn’t supposed to know how much he doesn’t like it. He never mentions it to her or anyone else, but she overhears more than she should, waking in the dead of night with screams and sickness strangling her throat.

Hushed, secretive, his voice barely a whisper in the still night air. It makes the hairs stand up on the back of her neck, unnerves her so much that she almost forgets the anguish in her body, in her mind, the dreams she can’t touch and the ones that will not leave her alone.

She closes her eyes, drifts out of her body, and listens.

“—stop trying to cosy up to them.” His voice is soft, but the anger is sharp, and it carries further than he probably knows. It is so uncharacteristic, so unlike what she would expect from him that it almost scares her. “It won’t work.”

“Do calm down, love. You’ll do yourself a mischief.” Locke is typically unruffled. A little annoyed, perhaps, but no more than she ever is about anything else. “I’m not trying to ‘cosy up’ to them. Not that it’d be any of your bloody business, mind you, if I did. You’re the one who walked out on me, remember? You don’t get a say in what I do any more. So maybe you should just—”

“Don’t change the subject!” He sounds like a weapon, like two weapons clashing and clanging against each other. “You think it’ll save you? Is that it? When we get back to that village and your twisted deeds come calling for vengeance, do you really think a couple of half-hearted gestures will be enough to protect you?”

“Not really, no.” Sandy can’t make out their bodies in the dark, but she can picture well enough the way Locke must be shrugging, arms as wide as her shackles allow, the picture of indifference. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m just doing it out of the goodness of my heart?” She laughs, like she doesn’t really buy it any more than he will. “Maybe I just feel sorry for the poor little wretch, all sad and broken and all the rest. Is that really so hard to believe?”

“From you?” There is darkness in him now, enough to swallow even the night. “Yeah, it is.”

“Typical god. Think you know everything. But then, you always did, didn’t you?” She sighs, huffy and melodramatic like everything she does, but Sandy has a strange feeling she’s making it louder on purpose this time to cover up something gentler underneath. “But you’re forgetting one tiny detail, sunshine: everything I did, you were right there by my side. And if they’re going to be calling for my head, what the bloody hell do you think they’ll do to _you_?”

His breath stalls, hitching raggedly in his chest; for a moment, the sound seems to drown out everything else.

“I’ve changed,” he says, after a long beat. Doesn’t sound convinced about it, but then he so rarely does. Always uncomfortable about how much he has to atone for, like his heart doesn’t quite fit his body. “They know what I’ve done.”

“Oh, they _do_ , do they?” She says it with meaning, with power, like she’s talking about something more than just the obvious; the words strike like stones in Sandy’s stomach. “Well, then, lucky you. Because I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if they _didn’t_.”

Then she stands, a heavy shadow against the night sky, chains rattling like ghosts. Sandy watches as she moves away, as far as her shackles allow, and lies down without another word.

Pigsy doesn’t move for a long moment. Sandy can’t make out his expression, but she can tell by his breathing that he’s deeply upset. Rough and ragged, laboured in the way it gets sometimes when they’ve been pushing too hard for too long without a break, like he’s been running until his lungs threaten to break down. Like he’s in _pain_.

She wants to go to him, to offer some kind of comfort, but she wouldn’t know where to begin. Besides, she doubts he’d be very pleased to find out she was listening to what was clearly a private moment, and she’s not sure what she could say to him even if she tried. She’s not particularly talented at offering comfort even when her mind is working; without even that, she doubts she could form a coherent sentence, much less find the right words to put in it.

Fortunately, she never gets the chance to try. Before she can even draw a breath, he lets out a low, muffled sound — like a howl smothered into a growl — and slams his fist into the nearest tree, once and then again, with such unfettered fury that it shakes and nearly falls.

Sandy shakes a little too. It’s not often that Pigsy frightens her — for all his size and strength, he really is the gentlest of giants — but she is very frightened of him now.

Better, she decides, quaking down to her bones, to go back to sleep and pretend she never heard anything.

And, not even sparing a thought for her nightmares, she does just that.

*

By daybreak, of course, she might as well have slept through the whole thing; delirious and confused as she so often is when she wakes, the moment is almost entirely forgotten.

It’s not the only one. It’s getting harder and harder for her to cling to her memories, even the ones she wants to keep close, and never more so than when the dawn chases away the shadows of night. Can’t remember what she dreamed, can’t remember _if_ she dreamed, can’t remember if the razed feeling in her throat comes from screaming or sickness or something else entirely. Can’t remember her own name sometimes, each lapse a bit longer than the last, vast stretches of time that spread to fill the space inside her.

Hours. Days. Three or four more, at least. And sometimes things happen to her, and sometimes they don’t, and the only thing she knows with any certainty is that it is getting harder and harder to hold onto what few small truths she does know.

Tripitaka tethers her, of course, as best she can. A few words here, a smile there, a grip on her hand so tight that the numbness in her fingers sweeps away the mess inside her head.

It works most of the time, but not always. Sometimes all she can do is ride it out, shuddering on her knees in the arms of a familiar stranger, confused and lost and so broken, not recognising or understanding anything around her, breathless with terror, waiting for the world to transform itself into something that makes sense.

It is hard, it is exhausting beyond words, and it is infinitely more painful than she will ever let the others see.

By choice, anyway.

But she doesn’t have much of that left by now, either. 

No choice in when she gets stuck in her broken pieces, no choice in who is there to see it when she does. No choices left to her at all.

It would be enough to drive anyone mad, if she wasn’t there already.

It happens once during a sparring session with Monkey. Only once, but it’s enough.

She’s ducking a particularly enthusiastic swing from his staff when the sun gets in her eyes. She blinks, reels, and the next thing she knows she’s sprawled on her back, everyone is crowded around her, and Monkey is telling anyone who’ll listen that he didn’t even touch her, that she just fell over, that it’s not his fault. His voice sounds high, his insistences more like poorly-veiled pleas... but then, perhaps that’s just her, disoriented and confused and reading too much into his usual bravado.

She’s not allowed to spar with him again after that. The Shaman says the exertion has become too dangerous, and Sandy believes him because he’s not even trying to look smug about it. Monkey, no doubt unsettled by the experience, doesn’t even try to protest.

It’s a nightmare of a thing, being deprived of the few moments in the day when existing didn’t come with a great force of will. Sandy feels like she’s lost a limb or one of her senses, like the only thing she had that was all her own — her body, her instincts, the mindlessness they brought with them — has been taken away from her. She doesn’t know how to get by without it, and for the rest of the day she stumbles like a sleepwalker, struggling more and more with each step, piece by piece, until they finally, _finally_ stop for the night.

Tripitaka, sensing her distress, takes her to a quiet, secluded clearing while the others argue over the evening meal. Holds her tight and mostly silent, only speaking when it’s absolutely necessary, just letting Sandy draw what meagre solace she can from her presence, from being together, close and connected, from finding peace in the world outside if not the one within.

Sandy is grateful. Also lost and frightened and exhausted. She wants to cry, but she doesn’t trust herself to let out that much emotion. Afraid to let down that last barrier, afraid of losing control in one of the too-few moments when actually she has it, when it is hers and mostly whole. She has no say in what happens to her at night, whether she screams or sobs in her sleep, whether she wakes up lost or confused, sick or scared or simply herself, but until her eyes fall closed and consciousness fades she will cling to that ever-important control with everything she has in her.

“We’ll be there soon,” Tripitaka says, when Sandy is a little steadier, when she’s not shaking so violently, when she’s finally able to lift her head from her shoulder. “Tomorrow, maybe. If we make good time. If we—”

“If _I_ can keep my mind intact for more than a moment, you mean.”

Tripitaka’s sigh is heavy; it ripples through Sandy’s body and makes her feel adrift. “I didn’t say that.”

Doesn’t deny she’s thinking it, though.

Good, Sandy thinks; if she did, it would only make it obvious she was lying. 

It’s no secret that Sandy’s mind has become her worst enemy, despite the Shaman’s repeated insistences that it is not; it is doing everything within its power to weaken her and make her slow, to drag out the journey until there is nothing left of her to finish it. Anyone can see that, though they’re generally too kind-hearted to say it to her face. Sandy doesn’t have the luxury they do, though, of ignoring it; she is fighting that battle every waking moment, and she doesn’t get to look away or pretend not to notice when she falters and slows them down.

“Doesn’t matter,” she mutters, here and now, alone with Tripitaka. She keeps her eyes on the ground, on the blue fabric of Tripitaka’s robes, on the present. “Can’t be changed. I’ll hold it together long enough to get better, or I won’t. Why bother talking about it at all?”

“Because it does matter,” Tripitaka says, voice so low she almost sounds angry. “Because _you—_ ”

Stops.

Sandy hears the shift in her breathing, steady to shuddering, slow to staccato. She leans in, compelled by an urgency she can’t explain, and lays her hand on Tripitaka’s chest. Palm flat, fingertips pressing gently; Tripitaka lets it happen without a word.

Her breath is no less unbalanced to the touch. Sandy feels it stuttering against her fingers, her palm. Fragile breathing, human breathing; it could be stopped in a moment by almost nothing at all, could be snuffed out or stifled or strangled or suffocated, _gone_ , taking Tripitaka with it, before she ever knew it was in trouble.

The thought paralyses her, makes her want to hold her close and protect her from everything, even the air. But it also makes her a little jealous, makes the morbid, terrified-of-living part of her wish she could stall her own breath so easily.

Sandy closes her eyes, tries to catch the rhythm with her own lungs, to pretend, if only for a moment, that Tripitaka’s human frailty is hers as well.

But it’s not. Never was. Never will be.

“You make it seem so easy,” she whispers, a little breathless from her efforts to breathe. Tripitaka’s heart kicks against the heel of her hand, responding to her words, her voice, responding to her. “Being fragile. Being...”

“Human?” Said softly, smiling. Sandy opens her eyes and lets the sight flood each of her senses in turn. “It has its drawbacks. But then, I guess, so does being a god.” She reaches out, presses her tentative, trembling fingertips to Sandy’s throbbing temple. “Some things we’re just not made for.”

Sandy shivers, at the contact and the words. It takes everything she has not to bury her face in Tripitaka’s robes again, not to press herself against her until she can’t tell their pulses apart, until her heart is beating like a human’s, until she can change her breathing at will, until she is a victim of her body and not her mind. She wants to look down at her own pale skin and see a network of veins and blood vessels, wants to clench her fist and feel the skin crack. She wants to be like Tripitaka, alive in every part of herself, alive and aware and absolutely flawed. She wants to be _whole_.

But she’s not, and she can’t make herself that way by wanting it. Can only pull away, eyes on Tripitaka’s moving chest, and say, “Yes.”

Tripitaka squeezes her hand. Soft skin. Warm blood under the surface, its tiny tributaries flowing with life. Her heart, beating and beautiful, on her sleeve.

“Tomorrow,” she says. “Whatever it takes. Tomorrow, we’ll get there.”

*

It’s a bad night.

Very, very bad.

Maybe the worst.

Sandy jolts awake, sprawled out flat on her back and surrounded by pitch-black darkness.

She’s completely paralysed, body and mind, and the Shaman’s freezing fingers are pressing down on her temples with the most terrible strength. He’s murmuring something under his breath — a chant, perhaps, or a mantra; Sandy can feel the thrum of magic between them — and her head pulses in rhythm with the words, pain she knows is there but feels only as a distant, hazy echo.

She recognises this sensation. Empty, hollow. _Numb_. Can’t move, can’t feel.

 _Something’s happened_ , she realises, and the horror that floods through her is so profound she feels it even through the numbness.

The Shaman pulls away the instant he sees she’s conscious. Her face warms a little without the cold contact, but she still can’t seem to move.

“She is awake,” he says, throwing the words over his shoulder like a commentary on the weather.

Beside him, visible only as a shadow, Tripitaka lets out a shaky, relieved breath. She’s holding Sandy’s hand in hers, but Sandy only feels the contact very dimly, like one or both of them are wearing thick gloves.

“Is she...?”

“She has returned to us, yes. In every sense of the word.” He looks down at Sandy, and when he addresses her he speaks very slowly as though to a small child. “The paralysis will wear off in a moment. You may be disoriented while your body returns to itself. Avoid making any sudden movements.”

And then he’s gone, vanishing in a flash of smoke and reappearing on the opposite side of the camp, looking drained and unhappy. Sandy watches him for a moment, vision only a little blurred, then turns her focus back to Tripitaka. Back where it belongs, to where she is anchored and tethered.

Tripitaka looks unwell. Uncomfortable, at least. Face pinched and pallid, she’s biting her lip and staring down at Sandy like she truly believed she was dead. The worry is a tangible thing; it ties knots in Sandy’s stomach, makes her feel dizzy even before she can move.

It is a few long moments before her tongue loosens enough to speak, to form the question she suspects she already knows the answer to: “What happened?”

Tripitaka doesn’t respond immediately. She just keeps holding her hand and looking down into her face, eyes flickering with fear and pain, like she’s not entirely convinced Sandy is herself. Like maybe she doesn’t feel safe, being so close to her.

Sandy swallows. It’s harder than it should be, with so much of her body still not responding. “Did I do something?”

“You...” She wets her lips, averts her eyes. Possibly still worried, possibly frightened now. Sandy can’t tell, and the uncertainty makes her stomach churn. “You were dreaming. Or... hallucinating, maybe?”

The word hangs on the air. Sandy feels the weight of it on her chest. “What happened?”

“We had to hold you down,” Tripitaka says quietly. She hesitates, breath hitching jaggedly, like it’s an effort to keep speaking, like she wants to turn around and run away. “You, uh... you kind of attacked Pigsy.”

Sandy tries to absorb that. She flexes her fingers, her toes; the sensation is slowly seeping back into her skin and bones, and it is bringing the emotion back as well. Takes a moment for it all to hit, but when it does she feels it like a blow: horror, disbelief, and slow-boiling panic.

“Would never do that,” she grits out through chattering teeth. “Would never attack one of you. Would never attack a _friend_.”

Tripitaka squeezes her hand, gentle, grounding. “I don’t think you knew he was your friend, Sandy. I think you thought he was someone else.” She looks away again, as though ashamed or upset, but she refuses to let go of her hand. “You were scared of him. Like that night in the tavern when you didn’t recognise me. You... I think you thought he was trying to hurt you. I think you were defending yourself.”

That is not at all comforting. In fact, it lends itself to some decidedly, devastatingly uncomforting thoughts.

Sandy sits up, struggling a little against the sluggishness still holding her body. Should probably stay down a while longer, but she wants to be upright for this, wants to be able to make Tripitaka look her in the eye if she has to.

“Did I attack _you_?” she asks in a hoarse, nauseous whisper. “In the tavern? Or here, or anywhere? Have I ever—”

“No!” Said with conviction, but her voice is sort of rising and falling as she speaks, pitching like she’s more afraid of the idea than she’d care to admit. “This is the first time you’ve laid a hand on anyone.” She shakes her head, still worried, still fearful, but possibly something else as well. “I promise you, Sandy. I swear it. You’ve never, ever done anything like this before.”

Sandy pulls free of her grip, wraps her arms around herself, and shivers. It’s a bit more reassuring, somehow, to feel her own body, than to be stifled and smothered under Tripitaka’s. She’s not sure if she’s completely herself yet — her head is throbbing very badly, a drumbeat of pain and confusion, and she can’t seem to catch hold of her thoughts — and it gives her a small measure of comfort to make contact inside her skin, to hold onto her body and imagine, even deludedly, that she is holding on to herself as well.

“Where is he?” she asks, almost frightened to hear the answer.

Tripitaka doesn’t answer. She casts a glance over her shoulder instead, and that’s all the answer Sandy needs. He’s there, keeping his distance. Maybe licking his wounds, literally or figuratively, maybe frightened of her. He’d never admit to the last one, she knows, even if it’s true. He’d talk like Tripitaka, all evasion and double-speak and not saying what he truly feels or means. ‘Wasn’t your fault,’ he’d say, or ‘no harm done’ or—

“It’s okay.”

Tripitaka. Again. But it’s not her place to say those words, not this time. Sandy shakes her head, regretting it immediately as the world seems to swerve around her. She doesn’t look, doesn’t follow the arc of Tripitaka’s gaze. Doesn’t trust herself to lay eyes on him until she knows—

“Did I hurt him badly?”

“No!” Too fast; it may not be a lie, but it’s not entirely the truth either. Sandy doesn’t need to be completely herself to recognise that. “No, of course not. You’d never do that. Even when you’re not...”

Trails off, with a sad, nervous look on her face.

It’s no comfort at all, and when Sandy shakes her head she feels violently ill.

“Not _myself_.” The word is a growl. “No excuse for attacking a friend. No excuse for hurting...”

She can’t even say it.

Slowly, unsteadily, she pushes herself to her feet. Wobbles a little, but stays upright under her own power. Turns carefully, tries to stay focused on her breathing and her body, on moving and staying up. Searches, blinking in the dark, for his familiar face; she is devastatingly frightened and feverishly desperate at the same time. Doesn’t want to see, but she needs to, has to. Has to see what she did, has to _know_. If she can see, if she can learn exactly what she did, maybe she can remember it too.

Tripitaka jumps up, stands at her side. One hand on her elbow, the other arm around her waist, like she thinks she can somehow brace her for this.

Can’t, of course. They are far beyond something so simple.

She meets Pigsy’s gaze across the half-dead fire, both of them wide-eyed and stricken. The moment alone is enough to make her knees buckle under her, and the pain in her head spreads and spreads until it seems to swallow her completely, until she feels like her body is about to start seizing, until she’s sure she’ll lose consciousness—

Again.

 _No_.

She locks her legs, digs her heels into the dirt, and holds herself upright. Holds herself in every way, inside and outside, and will not — _will not_ — surrender to her dizziness.

Takes a deep breath, silences her aching pounding head, and _looks_.

And it—

He—

It’s not as bad as she imagined, at least.

Might not be worth mentioning if it had come from an enemy. A demon or a wayward human, a vicious foe or a cruel stranger. Someone, anyone who isn’t supposed to be his friend.

But from her?

All she sees is blood and the certainty that she’s the one who drew it.

Thin scratches raked across the right side of his face, just below his eye. Jagged and feral, like claw-marks from a trapped and desperate animal, a creature blinded by instinct. No bruises, and not quite as much blood as there could be, but it still makes her feel horrible. She looks down at her hands, wonders if she still has his skin under her fingernails.

The thought makes her stomach turn so violently she has to clap a hand over her mouth, has to turn away or be sick.

Eyes shut, breathing shallow and ragged, she tries with everything in her not to wonder what she must have been feeling to do such an awful thing.

“That was me.” Her voice is hoarse, a blade in her throat. “I did that.”

She’s sure she’s speaking too quietly for him to hear, even in the dead-of-night quiet, but he huffs a protest as if he did; Sandy doesn’t have the stomach to look back at him, but knowing him she suspects he’s trying to smile for her.

“Just a scratch,” he says, and musters a wan, strangled laugh. “Barely felt a thing.”

He’s lying, of course. Anyone can see that. Even Sandy, even with her eyes shut tight.

Tripitaka takes her hand, pulls her in close and supports her, like maybe she knows her small body is the only thing keeping Sandy from hitting the ground. Holds on tight, but when Sandy opens her eyes to look at her she seems unable to meet her gaze.

“You weren’t yourself,” she says again. “You were scared.”

True. Of that, Sandy is certain. She’s seen all manner of injuries from all manner of sources; she is intimately acquainted with the sorts of marks left by creatures so crippled by fear that violence is the only reflex left to them.

But she is scared now as well. Terrified. And she would never—

 _Could_ never—

“No.”

She pulls away. Struggles, with everything she has in her, against the urge to run, to flee, to _hide_.

It’s been a long, long time since she felt that instinct turned inwards, since the thing she was afraid of was herself and not someone else. No angry villagers here, no threats of violence or death or worse. No demons, with their twisted magics or their preternatural strength. Just a place inside that she can’t control and doesn’t understand. Just _herself_ , the dangerous, monstrous thing her family saw all those years ago in the daughter they threw away.

Tripitaka reaches for her, but catches only air. “Sandy...”

“No.”

She stays where she is. Paralysed, rooted to the ground by something much more powerful than the Shaman’s magic. Afraid, almost, to even try and move; if she does, if she gives in to the primal instincts bubbling inside her chest, she’ll be gone, vanished into the night like the shadow she once was, and they will never be able to find her.

It is so, so tempting. But without them — without the Shaman to hold her mind together, without Tripitaka to tether her and pull her back from the edges of her madness — what’s left to stop her from becoming something worse?

“Hey.” Pigsy is still trying to smile. It’s a strained, about-to-cry sort of smile, and it doesn’t have much effect when he’s still hovering on the other side of the fire, too nervous to come any closer. “It’s no big deal. Really. I’d take a scratch on the face over what you did to Monkey’s boots last night.”

Trying to make things lighter, to make even the worst tragedies into something funny, just like he always does. Doesn’t really have any effect, though, because Sandy doesn’t fully remember what she did last night either, only the aches and pains it left on her body when she woke in the morning.

There are so few things she remembers with any clarity, so few moments that are her own; how can she know that Tripitaka is speaking the truth? How would she know if there were a dozen incidents, hidden or denied or swept away? How can she be sure of anything when she can’t _remember_?

She takes a deep breath, looks around. Everyone is wide awake, and they’re all looking at her.

Monkey, feigning carelessness. Twirling his staff like he’s always up at this hour, like he really believes she won’t notice the way his eye is twitching with the strain of pretending he’s not staring. She wonders if he’s the one who had to hold her down, who kept her subdued and docile while the Shaman worked his magic to bring her back. She wonders what he was thinking when he did it; did he try not to hurt her, or did he think she would have deserved it if he had?

Locke, as close to Pigsy’s side as Monkey will let her get. Not very, but more than perhapss he should be. Protective and a little edgy, like she’s not sure whether to be angry because someone hurt him without her permission or heartbroken because he got hurt at all. She still cares very deeply, Sandy has learned over the last few days. Would never tell him that it hurt when he turned away from her, but it did, and the conflict on her face now, all of it, spawns from a softness she’ll never admit to.

The Shaman, drained and exhausted once more by his labours, studying her like a healer studies his patient; she can almost feel him prodding at her mind, her thoughts, trying to determine how well he’s mended her, how well she’s mending herself with his help. Thinking about it makes her ears ring out a warning, and so she forces herself to stop. Focuses instead on the others, on Monkey and Pigsy, her friends, the way they’re looking at her, their feelings reflected on their faces, the lines of their mouths, the clenching of their jaws, the shadows under their eyes.

She steadies herself. Turns back to Tripitaka. Says, very quietly, “I’m going.”

Tripitaka’s face falls, but only slightly. Disappointment, but not surprise. She saw this coming.

Still, because she is who she is, she has to try and stop it. “Sandy—”

“No. Come with me if you like, or go back to sleep. But whatever you choose to do, I’m going now.” Her breath hitches, pain her chest like cracking ribs; it’s hard to breathe and speak at the same time. “I won’t sit around and wait for my mind to make me a monster.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Tripitaka says. Gently, softly, like a farmhand trying to calm a spooked horse. “I won’t let it.”

“Couldn’t stop it before. What makes you think you’d do any better a second time?” She looks to the Shaman, the barest flicker of a glance, just enough to see him nod his affirmation. “No more sleep. No more rest. I’m going now, and I won’t stop until I get to Palawa. With you, or alone.”

Tripitaka opens and closes her mouth a couple of times. Desperate to argue, Sandy can tell, but she knows there’s no point. Not now. Sandy is not generally known for her stubbornness — at least not when she can’t pretend it’s reason — but when she sets her mind to something important she can be as wilful and petulant as Monkey on his worst days. Once she has decided on a task, even if it’s foolish or dangerous, she will not be swayed. And now more than ever, with someone else’s skin under her nails and no memory of how or why it happened, she will hold her ground or die trying.

From the other side of the fire, the Shaman sighs. “You cannot travel alone,” he observes flatly. “If the monk won’t accompany you, I will.”

It is more than a little unsettling that he doesn’t insist she wait until morning, that he does not demand she get more sleep or more rest or whatever else he thinks she needs. It has been the one constant of the last few days, his insistence that she sleep, that she rest, that she not push herself. If he sees the urgency in this as well as she does, that is worrying indeed. It means things really are as serious as she thinks they are.

Tripitaka still looks unconvinced, however. “It’s dark,” she says, flashing Sandy a pointed, if still rather uneasy, look. “I mean, you trip over your own feet in broad daylight.”

“Lived my whole life in the dark,” Sandy counters effortlessly. “I’d be _less_ inclined to trip over my own feet if you let me travel by night once in a while.”

Pigsy chuckles. He’s already crouched over their supplies, packing things away and readying for the journey, like it simply goes without saying that he’ll come too. His loyalty is an unfathomable gift, especially after what she’s just done to him. It touches her, so deeply that she has to swallow over a lump in her throat. She doesn’t deserve this.

“Good for you,” he's grumbling, hiding the haunted look with a wry, self-deprecating grin. “Better hope your night-owl reflexes are sharp enough to catch the rest of us when _we_ trip over _our_ feet.”

Sandy tries to laugh, but she can’t. Throat sore, mouth dry, and there is no room left inside her for even forced mirth.

“Of course,” she say hoarsely. “It’s the least I could do, after...”

Stops, feeling wretched and ragged and too weak to carry such guilt.

Tripitaka squeezes her hand. “Sandy, don’t. This isn’t your fault.”

“Then whose is it?” She’s begging. “Must be someone’s fault, yes?”

Tripitaka doesn’t answer for a very long time. Her eyes glimmer, hard and grim and burning with tears, and Sandy has to look away or be drowned in them. She studies the broad lines of Pigsy’s shoulders instead, watches with horror and guilt and pain as they begin to shudder, soundless in the dark.

At long last, low and confessional, Tripitaka whispers, “I don’t know.” Her voice is shuddering a little too. “But when we find out...”

Doesn’t finish. Can’t, maybe. Promises are too important to her, too precious to make one she doesn’t know if she can keep.

Sandy swallows, a nervous convulsion that doesn’t help at all. Looks back at Pigsy, at the way he hides his face and all the pain and the pieces she tore out of it. Looks at Monkey, who won’t spar with her any more, who can only look at her now through sideways glances, like he’s afraid of meeting her eye. Looks at the Shaman, and at Locke, two demons going against their nature to help an ailing, damaged god.

Looks, at long last, at Tripitaka, worried and weary, worn down by the weight of being her anchor.

“When we find out,” Sandy says, finding the strength to finish so Tripitaka won’t have to, “I suppose that will mean my mind is my own again.”

It doesn’t sound like very much, put that way. A strange thing to strive towards; people like Tripitaka — normal people — take for granted the peace and stability of a mind that simply _works_ , that does what it’s told without effort. It shouldn’t feel like some grand, unobtainable victory, simply being able to string a thought together and not wonder if she’ll lose consciousness or memories or worse. Such a small, meagre prize after everything she’s put them through. A hollow reward, but the only one she wants: closure, and an end to the chaos inside her head.

For her, if for no-one else, it is enough.

Enough to drive her on. Enough to push her forwards. Enough to keep her going, just a little bit further, just a little bit longer, just a little bit more.

Enough, she decides, summoning her courage, to get her to Palawa.

*

And it is.

And it does.

She pushes them hard, even in the few hours before sunrise when she’s the only one who can see. She can hear Pigsy and Monkey grunting and complaining behind her, crashing into each other or the nearby foliage, both unaccustomed to navigating by shadows the way she is, but she can’t bring herself to slow down or help them. Can barely bring herself to look at them at all, knowing that she’s the one putting them through this, that every muffled ‘ow!’ is a pain endured for her.

It gets easier for them with the coming of daylight. Easier to see, at least, though the complaining doesn’t stop, and with increased visibility comes weariness and hunger.

Sandy doesn’t care. She refuses to stop for breakfast, even when Tripitaka quietly suggests they’d move more swiftly with a little sustenance in them.

“Do what you like,” Sandy tells her, broaching no debate, “but I’m going to keep moving.”

And she does.

And so do they.

And Sandy wants to believe, at least in some self-hating part of herself, that it’s not really _her_ they’re following but Tripitaka, the not-actually-a-monk who has led them so well for so long. It is second nature to all of them to go where she goes, to do as she does, and in this she’s nearly as determined as Sandy. Has to be. She has a promise to keep — _tomorrow, whatever it takes_ — and she will not break from her side until she sees it through.

She doesn’t speak. None of them do. The silence is heavy, haunting; it presses against the edges of Sandy’s mind like a threat, like it’s trying to find the weak points in there and break her open again. Sharp, serrated, and terribly painful.

So she tries, as best she can, to distract herself. Counts the branches on the trees, the cracks in the ground where the earth is dry, the birds flying overhead. Counts the colours of the leaves, measures the direction of the wind, keeps her thoughts on mindless, mundane things, on numbers and patterns and words. Always been a good friend to her, words, the one talent she took to with no effort at all. And she uses it now, like her life depends on it.

And it does.

And bit by bit, step by step, it helps her to keep going.

She lets them stop for lunch, if only briefly, because Pigsy whines and wails, insisting he’ll collapse if she forces him to take another step without a good meal. Sandy wants to leave him behind, and anyone else who feels that way, but one look at his face kills the impulse before she can act on it; even in the light of day, she finds she can’t deny him anything after what she did. He looks better now, the scratches on his face no longer bleeding, but still her stomach gets sour with guilt every time she looks his way.

So. Lunch. An apology, of sorts, even as it makes her restless and upset.

She doesn’t eat, and not even Tripitaka encourages her to try. She just leaves her alone — they all do — and eats as quickly and quietly as she can.

Sandy doesn’t sit, doesn’t rest. Edgy, uncomfortable, she paces in circles, filling her head with nonsense to keep it from filling up with other things.

Monkey, as impatient as she is, falls into step beside her, keeping pace with her but not trying to speak or engage with her. Maybe he doesn’t want to disturb her, or maybe he just doesn’t know what to say. No offers to spar with her this time, but no remarks on what she did either; it’s a peculiar sort of limbo, just walking and not talking, but one that Sandy can appreciate. His company, his willingness to be close to her again, unafraid of what she’s capable of, means a lot all on its own.

And then they’re back on the road, some with full stomachs and others with full heads, all of them quiet, all of them utterly focused. United in a single purpose, even the demons among them surrendering comfort for speed, in a way that might have been touching if it wasn’t also urgent, if Sandy didn’t feel that urgency so viscerally inside of her, the pain throbbing in her skull to match the rhythm of her footprints, the pounding of her heart.

She struggles, stumbles, pushes her body further than any rational person would, pushes her body so hard there’s no strength left to push at her mind. It has been through more than she’d care to admit, her body, as much a victim of her damaged thoughts as anything else, and there is not a part of it left that doesn’t feel it. Throat razed from screaming, from sickness, from sobbing. Fingers bruised from scrabbling for purchase, for balance, for something solid. Legs aching from too much walking, shoulders stiff, arms nearly useless.

It is hard. Every breath, every step, every movement _hurts_. But every time she pauses, even for a moment, the maelstrom in her head grows worse and her heart starts to hammer against her ribs, terrified of what might happen if she stops using her body and lets her mind speak instead.

And so she struggles, and so she stumbles, and so she hurts. And—

And it is just as she loses her balance for the fourth time in less than an hour, just as she is about to give in and let the exhaustion drive her down to her knees, that Tripitaka grabs her arm, not to steady her but to catch her attention, to gaze up at her with wide, glimmering eyes and whisper, breathless and tearful, “ _Look_.”

And Sandy turns to the horizon, distant and shimmering, and looks.

And blinks.

And _stares_.

And—

“Oh.”

Tripitaka, crying just a little, hugs her so hard Sandy fears her ribs will break.

“I promised,” she rasps, like the world could crumble under their feet and she wouldn’t care one bit. “I promised I’d get you there.”

Sandy pulls away.

Looks down at her beautiful face, her bright eyes and her good intentions, and she says, as steadily as she can, “ _I_ got me there.”

Tripitaka takes a deep, shaky breath. Nods, awestruck and reverent, and turns her face to the horizon, to the familiar village, to _Palawa_ , their old home, glittering like a beacon against the blue sky.

“Yes,” she whispers. “You did.”

*

Another hour, and they stand, all six of them, at the village gates.

“Home sweet home,” Locke comments. She’s surprisingly sincere, but the rough edges of her voice still seem to shatter the moment. Eyes darting from Pigsy to the towering monstrosity of her former palace, her leer is not quite as crude as she’d probably like it to be. “Suppose it’s too much to hope for a parade.”

“Be quiet,” Monkey snaps, tugging irritably on her chain.

Ignoring them both as best she can, Sandy massages her temples. Her head aches, worse now than it was even a few moments ago, ears ringing and eyes watering. So much of her memory is tied to this place, this village that became her home.

Such as it was. 

Not much of one, unwelcoming and uncaring, a life spent lurking in the shadows, hiding from everything and everyone. _Home_ , the only definition she ever had before Tripitaka showed up and transformed her heart. Still, for all it was, all it did, Palawa flows inside her veins as deep and rich as any blood, and the cracked places in her head resist and rebel against the parts of it they can’t remember.

“The discomfort is to be expected,” the Shaman says, reading her thoughts as he so often seems to do. “The journey, unpleasant as I’m sure it was, was the simple part; now the true hardship begins. Are you prepared, little god?”

Sandy wets her lips. Her tongue catches the taste of salt; it floods her mouth and makes her feel—

She doesn’t know.

Closes her mind to the taste, the sensation, the looming threat of memory. Focuses on the question.

“No.”

A simple answer. The Shaman twitches his approval with a curt nod.

“Good.”

And off he strides, like that’s the end of it, honing in on the tavern with the surety of someone who knows exactly where it is. So far as Sandy knows, he’s never set foot in the village, but he did spend an unsettling amount of time inside their minds in the breaking ground, and he’s been poking relentlessly at hers ever since it began to fall apart. She wonders how many other villages and towns he knows with the same stolen intimacy, how many maps he has in his mind of places he’s never seen, plundered without mercy from the gods he tormented.

She shivers at the thought. A chill runs through her bones, her veins; for a moment it seems to swallow her whole body before retreating, settling like an old illness in her chest.

Tripitaka looks up at her for a long moment, chewing her lip like she wants to say something meaningful. In the end, though, she just says,“Let’s go.”

Sandy is used to this by now.

And then they’re following the Shaman’s shadow, tracing his footprints like they haven’t walked these streets a thousand times on their own. Like they need him to guide them.

Well. It has become something of a habit, hasn’t it? No sense in breaking it now.

The village has changed a lot, and not at all. It still looks the same, the streets and houses and people all just as she remembers them, but the air feels thinner somehow. Lighter, perhaps, without the stench of fear seeping into every molecule. Like the dust and stones and bricks can breathe now too, matching rhythm with the people. Freedom is a strange taste in a place that was crushed and bowed for as long as Palawa was, but it suits the placewell. Sweet and refreshing, it dances like spring rain on her tongue.

The tavern definitely hasn’t changed. Like the woman inside, Monica, it seems to exist out of time, never changing, ever untouched by the world around it, for good or for ill.

The others file inside, one by one, but Sandy lingers outside, overwhelmed and uncomfortable and intangibly frightened.

She tries to quiet her thoughts, silence the ringing in her ears and the buzzing in her brain that says she’ll lose herself if she doesn’t stay completely, utterly focused. So close to this building she both remembers and doesn’t, this building that holds meaning but won’t tell her what it is, so close she could reach out and touch the bricks, so close it could devour her in a single swallow. A step inside might destroy her if she’s ill-prepared; she can feel the threat of it already, even outside its doors.

“Sandy?”

Tripitaka, waiting for her as she always does. One foot inside and one outside the door, she looks like a creature of two worlds, the real and the unknown. Sandy lets the sight of her fill her completely, heart and mind and soul. She opens her mouth to speak, but her chest still hurts and all that comes out is a sickly, rasping cough.

Tripitaka frowns, thrown and a little worried. “Are you okay?”

A difficult question to answer. Sandy can feel herself shivering, can feel the pain rising up to grip her throat. She feels feverish and shivery, but somehow she knows it’s not real.

“Don’t know.” Her voice sounds hoarse. “My mind, I think.”

“Okay.” She finds her hand again, squeezes it gently. “Let me know if you need—”

“I will.”

Bolstered by the sudden need to avert her eyes, to not let Tripitaka see how close she is to tears, to giving in to the confusion and fear, she shoulders past her and follows the others inside.

Inside, to—

To noise and to chaos, to a tavern so much like the one at the Jade Mountain — the one where all this started — that for a moment she is completely overwhelmed.

Her vision swims. The ringing in her ears intensifies, louder and louder until she she can’t hear anything else, no sounds or voices, nothing but an endless cacophony of meshing, merging madness. It is chaos, like the fractures in her head come to life, like the world has turned itself upside-down and brought her along with it. She stumbles, feels the press of something warm and solid against her side, and then—

 _Hears_.

Through the clamour, the maelstrom, through the ringing that heralds something far worse.

High, soft, beautiful.

 _Tripitaka_.

Her voice cuts through everything, carving a clean path like a boat through still water. Sandy can’t make out the words, can’t understand anything, but it doesn’t matter; she can _hear_ , and she lets the sound of her voice — the most beautiful sound, the only sound that matters — drown out the rest, stilling the storms and silencing the chaos.

Doesn’t matter what she’s saying. Unimportant. Her name or something else, hollow promises that it will be all right, that she is with her, that she’ll be her tether, her anchor, her everything, that she will hold her and keep her safe from the monsters in her head. Nonsense, foolishness, lies; even if Sandy could make out the words, they wouldn’t mean anything. Nothing matters, none of it, not next to the certainty that it is _her_ , that Sandy can hear her, that her voice can still reach her, can still touch her, can still _save_ her.

“Yes,” Sandy mumbles, mostly to herself. “Yes, I...”

Tripitaka’s eyes catch the light, trembling with moisture. “Okay?”

Sandy nods shakily. Waits for her vision to clear, her hearing to return to normal, for the world to right itself and go back to the way it should be.

“I think so,” she says, hesitant but with hope. “Thank you, again.”

Tripitaka nods, relief flooding her face. “Good,” she breathes, and squeezes her hand one more time before turning away.

And then, from the other side of the room, ringing out as clear as a bell:

“Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

And Tripitaka’s whole self seems to burst to life, overwhelmed and overjoyed. Everything else seems to disappear from her thoughts — even Sandy, though she can’t bring herself to mind — and she lights up like she’s holding the sun inside her chest. Sandy is certain she’s never seen a more beautiful sight in all her life.

And her voice, when she speaks again, is clear and loud and full of so much warmth and love that it cuts through everything, the noise of the tavern and the noise inside, _everything_.

“Monica!”

And Sandy knows that it’s not meant for her, that joyful, awestruck cry, but she can’t help herself: she lets it warm her too.

She keeps her distance. Respectful, aware that this, at least, is not for her. Watches, trying not to dissociate, as Monica lifts Tripitaka bodily from the ground and wraps her up in the biggest hug she’s ever seen.

It is a blessed sight, happiness and hope filling every corner of the room, and it makes Sandy feel steady to watch them, to listen as their voices rise above the rest of the clamour, a heartfelt reunion that soars and soars and makes all the pain almost worthwhile.

For them.

It is such a beautiful sight, Monica and Tripitaka and a friendship she knows nothing about, a friendship that clearly runs very deep.

But for her...

Less so.

The tavern presses on the inside of her head when she looks around, tries to reshape itself into something else, something she doesn’t recognise. Something like a home, or maybe a prison. A place it might have been either, or neither, or both. Her mind can’t make sense of all the conflicting sensations, and she doesn’t know whether she should feel safe or scared. The urge to run and hide is almost overpowering, even now, but everywhere she looks all she sees is joy and love and friendship.

When she’s done hugging the life out of Tripitaka, Monica returns her to solid ground and takes a good long look at her. Appraising, then approving, then exuberant. Her face is a picture of affection, of a strange maternal warmth, and something about it makes Sandy’s stomach squirm, her happiness skirting the edge of nausea in a way that makes no sense.

“Decided to be yourself again, eh?” Monica is saying to Tripitaka, playfully ruffling her barely-existent hair. “Good for you, my girl.”

Tripitaka clears her throat, embarrassed in the way of young people when coddled by their elders. “Sort of. I mean, I’m still Tripitaka. But I’m a little bit of who I was as well.” She smiles, and the whole tavern catches fire. “It’s nice, being able to be both.”

Monica nods her approval, then looks around, taking in the rest of them. Sandy, still shuffling her feet in the doorway, Monkey and Pigsy inching their way towards the bar with no subtlety whatsoever... and their demon companions, carefully staying out of the way but still very conspicuous. She narrows her eye, suspicion overriding the gleeful reunion, at Locke in particular but also a little at the Shaman; there is curiosity on her face for a moment, and then mistrust.

“Interesting company you’re keeping these days,” she remarks, a touch of ice dousing the warmth. “Would expect you, of all people, to have higher standards than that.”

Tripitaka winces, glances back towards Sandy. “It’s complicated.”

“Would have to be, I’d wager, to bring the likes of _her_ back here.”

Sandy ducks her head, instinctively anticipating hatred and violence, but of course Monica isn’t speaking about her. Barely spares her a glance, even. While she’s angry, there is no room for anyone but Locke.

Locke, who is more than happy to steal the attention, good or bad.

Whether or not she realises how much of a relief it is for Sandy, it’s hard to be sure, but Sandy doesn’t care; so long as Locke is swaggering and acting like she still owns the place, it makes her invisible. With how much attention is likely to be on her very soon, she’ll gladly take it, no matter the motivation.

“ _Charming_ ,” Locke’s muttering, flashing Monica a strange sort of half-scowl, half-smirk. “After everything I did for this nothing little village, you’d think your lot would show a bit of gratitude.”

“Come a little closer,” Monica hisses, “and I’ll show you some—”

“Okay!” Tripitaka, raising both hands to defuse the situation before it can escalate. Sandy can’t help feeling a little disappointed. “Pigsy? Could you maybe take her somewhere else?”

Pigsy opens his mouth to reply, but Monkey leaps in before he can get even a word out. “On it,” he chirps, flashing a sharp-toothed smile with just a touch of malicious glee. “I know the _perfect_ place for her.”

And so saying, he drags her out the door by her chains, with Pigsy trailing miserably behind.

Monica doesn’t lower her guard, even after they’ve gone. She turns her suspicion onto the Shaman instead, anger tempered only slightly by curiosity. She studies him closely, with a sort of guarded interest, like she’s already halfway familiar with him or his kind. That is surprising, at least to Sandy; before the breaking ground, she’d never encountered a demon like him before. But then, so far as she can tell, there are very few things that Monica doesn’t know at least a little something about it.

Tripitaka clears her throat again, no doubt to try to pre-empt any animosity between them. “This is the Shaman,” she announces delicately. “He’s with us. Uh, I mean... helping. That is, he’s here to help us.”

Monica raises a brow, still eyeing him curiously. “Shaman, eh? Any relation to—”

“ _No_ ,” he says, with a firmness that precludes any further questioning.

Sandy blinks. So does Tripitaka. But neither the Shaman nor Monica seem inclined to elucidate. Monica merely grunts, shrugs, and says, “Good.” Then, turning back to Tripitaka, “What sort of trouble have you gotten yourselves into that you’d need the likes of him?”

Tripitaka glances at Sandy. The discomfort on her face is excruciating, and marks a pointed, miserable end to the joyful reunion. Sandy grimaces, feeling ashamed and desperately guilty; once again, her friends have been forced to cut short their own happiness because of her weakness.

Finally, chewing her lip and looking awkward, Tripitaka says, “It’s a long story.”

“Oh, I’ll bet it is,” Monica remarks. She sounds a little subdued now, and when her gaze follows Tripitaka’s to land on Sandy, still loitering shyly in the doorway her expression grows very serious. “You both look halfway starved. When was the last time you had a half-decent meal?”

Tripitaka smiles shakily. “It’s been a while.”

Sandy thinks of the journey here, of the nights spent heaving in the dirt on her hands and knees, and doesn’t say anything.

Monica quirks a brow, perhaps sensing her discomfort but doesn’t comment.

“Well, then, get yourselves into the kitchen, both of you. A hot meal and a pot of tea, and you can tell me all about it.” She doesn’t waste another glance on the Shaman, but her unflattering thoughts written are all over her face when she adds, “You can even bring your new friend, if he’s housebroken.”

The Shaman snorts his derision. “I do not require...” He wrinkles his nose. “... _tea_.”

“Suit yourself,” Monica counters, shrugging her broad shoulders. “Sit in the corner, then, for all I care. Just keep your nose out of other people’s heads and we’ll be peachy.”

The Shaman chuckles. “Oh, I’m afraid it’s far too late for that.”

Monica raises her eyebrows all the way up to her hairline. “Excuse me?”

Tripitaka clears her throat, wearing the look of someone who would very like the ground to open up and swallow her.

“Like I said,” she sighs, “it’s a _long_ story.”

*


	8. Chapter 8

*

It takes some time to talk it all through.

It’s not a commodity they have in abundance, time, as the Shaman is happy to remind them, but Monica has always prided herself on her hospitality and she seems disinclined to let little things like medical emergencies change that.

The kitchen is not the ideal place for a conversation, but they make do with what they have. Filled to bursting with a thousand sounds and smells, clanking pans and bubbling pots, a dozen different meals all simmering away at once, it assaults Sandy’s senses like being slammed into a wall. It burns inside her skin, whispers and murmurs inside her head and she can’t find a name for the peculiar sort of discomfort that settles in the pit of her belly. It is violently unpleasant, almost visceral, and yet some strange part of it tastes like comfort.

Monica shoos the handful of kitchen staff away, leaving their little group in relative privacy. Her definition of it, anyway, still surrounded by so much noise and chaos. She makes a show of ignoring the Shaman, like she’s trying a little too hard to appear unbothered by his presence, and spends an uncomfortable amount of time looking Tripitaka and Sandy up and down. She studies them both with unsettling closeness, like she’s trying to figure out what and who they’ve become since their paths last crossed.

Tripitaka lets it happen, riding out the scrutiny like she’s made her life out of such moments. Sandy, being less accustomed to it and far less comfortable, hides her face behind her hair and doesn’t peek out until she’s sure Monica’s eye is elsewhere.

“Well,” Monica says, at long last. “What’ll it be?”

Tripitaka looks around at the sensory nightmare that is the kitchen, then shrugs. “We’ve just spent a week on the road with Pigsy’s cooking. What do you think?”

Monica snorts her amusement, seeming to recognise something hidden in that, then turns to Sandy. “And you? You’d think being out of that blasted sewer would’ve bulked you up a bit, but I’d swear you’re skinnier now than you were when you left.”

Sandy bristles, a little annoyed, a little defensive. She wants to point out that it’s not her fault, that her mind has made an enemy of her body as well, but she doesn’t. It’s none of Monica’s business, and in any case she’s too tired to try.

So, instead, she just mumbles, “Do you have any broth?”

“Eh?” Monica looks perplexed and bemused in near-equal measure. “You’ve come all this way, and all you want is—”

“Yes.” She’s flushing, heat crawling unpleasantly up the back of her neck, and she doesn’t know why. “The, um, the kind with the vegetables? The root vegetables, and the spices and, uh...”

Trails off, feeling strange and shivery, uncomfortable all over. Tripitaka touches her arm, grounding her, but doesn’t speak.

Monica, meanwhile, is staring at her like she’s just demanded a blood sacrifice; the bemusement is long gone now, and the perplexity is twisting into something deeply unsettling. “Strange thing to ask for,” she muses, almost to herself. “You’ve not had that stuff since...”

She stops. Her eye goes wide, as though in realisation, and she whirls back to Tripitaka with a thousand questions hanging on her open mouth.

Tripitaka grimaces. She shifts a little closer to Sandy, quietly protective, but keeps her eyes on Monica.

“She’s not well,” she explains softly.

“Yeah, starting to figure that out.” She glances back at Sandy with an odd, haunted look in her eye. “Made that for you once, a lifetime ago. But you couldn’t possibly—”

Stops again, but Sandy hears the unspoken conclusion. “Remember?”

Monica takes a deep, heavy breath. “That’s why you’re here.”

“Indeed so.” The Shaman, speaking up for the first time. He keeps his voice low, uncharacteristically polite, like even he can tell Monica is not someone to make into an enemy. “Her mind is damaged.”

Monica closes her eye. Sad and regretful, and in terrible pain.

“Yeah,” she says in a hollow whisper, “I know it is.”

Dimly, distantly, Sandy hears Tripitaka suck in her breath. Hears the Shaman hum, contemplative and a little curious. Hears the world around her go about its business with hissing steam and clanging pans, voices chattering outside in the main tavern and the creaking of the old window on its hinges. Hears her own pulse hammering inside her head like the drums of war.

Beside her, sounding sick and horrified, Tripitaka says, “How?”

“How do you think?” Monica rasps. “I was _there_.”

Sandy’s stomach clenches so tightly, so violently, that she has to brace herself against the nearest wall to keep herself upright. Her body feels like it’s seizing, like it can’t decide whether to be sick or lose consciousness or simply freeze up completely until it can process what it’s just heard. It doesn’t manage any of those things, too shaken to do much of anything at all, but she hovers on the edge of all three for what feels like an eternity.

“I don’t...” The words come out distorted, slurred; she feels like she did when she was intoxicated, like the whole world is jolting and jarring and falling off its axis. “I can’t... I...”

Oblivious to her growing distress, or simply choosing to ignore it, the Shaman says, “Excellent.”

“Is it?” Tripitaka whispers, sounding as shell-shocked as Sandy feels.

“Indeed.” Then, with a sort of grudging pride, “Clearly, you were correct in bringing us here. Remarkable instincts, for a human.”

Tripitaka doesn’t seem to hear more than half of that. She’s looking at Sandy now, wide-eyed and worried, and she’s looking at Monica like she’s never seen her before, and she doesn’t seem to know which one of them she should try to speak with first.

She doesn’t get the chance to choose. Monica, still looking haunted, turns back to her pots and pans and says, very slowly, “So you’re here to... what, find out what happened? Get the whole story?”

“Something like that,” Tripitaka manages.

Monica nods, mostly to herself. She doesn’t look especially pleased by the idea, but she’s never balked from her duties before and it’s obvious that she won’t shy away now. Sandy knows she should be thankful for that, but she can’t seem to stop reeling.

“I can talk you through it,” Monica says, very slowly. “What I know, anyway. I can—”

“No!” The Shaman again, blurting the word out with unexpected urgency. Forgetting himself in his haste to silence her, he throws himself between them. “That is the _last_ thing she needs.”

Tripitaka blinks. “But isn’t that what we came here for?”

“We came here to _share_ her memories, not to _hear_ them.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Foolish question. Of course there is.” Sandy closes her eyes as he speaks, lets the rhythm of his voice flow over her like a steady sea. “Speech is clumsy. Impure, tainted with biases, with presumption, exaggeration, falsehood. It contaminates the truth, twists and transforms it into an idealised version of itself, a fairy tale with no basis in reality.” His voice sharpens; Sandy opens her eyes, watches as his grow dark. “Even if you believe you are recounting your experiences with absolute honesty, still there will be mistakes. Details forgotten or distorted, moments lost or incorrectly recounted... the truth becomes obsolete, becomes subjective. And, for our purposes, rendered worthless.”

Tripitaka is nodding along, clearly out of her depth. “I see,” she says, though it’s fairly obvious she doesn’t.

The Shaman ignores her. “Memory can only be rebuilt from memory,” he says, fiercely emphatic. “Speech is merely a cheap, futile imitation, good for nothing but tea parties and navel-gazing.”

Monica looks personally affronted by that. “I’ll have you know...”

“ _Silence_.” His vehemence broaches no argument; even Monica is stunned into obedience. “I have no intention of standing here all day and debating your fallibility while your little god slips further and further through the cracks in her mind. Time is of the essence, and we have wasted too much of it already. You will allow us to plumb your memories, uncontaminated and untainted by your clumsy, petty words, or else we will take our needs elsewhere.”

Tripitaka massages her temples. She looks like she wants to step in, to try and placate one or both of them before they devolve into finger-pointing and name-calling, but realises that trying would do more harm than good.

Sensible to stay back, Sandy thinks anxiously; they can’t risk alienating either of them. Need them both in relatively good spirits, willing to work alongside each other. Just the thought of losing either — the demon who is holding her mind in his hands or the first person they’ve met with some idea of what happened — fills her with such fear that her knees go weak.

“Please,” she hears herself whisper, and she doesn’t know which one of them she’s talking to, only that she’s desperate. “Please, don’t...”

Tripitaka moves in closer, catching her distress and peeling it away before it can become something darker.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, with aching tenderness. Then, loud enough to fill the kitchen, “Monica, do you really think we would’ve come all the way back here if this was something we could fix by talking about it over a pot of tea?”

The Shaman nods his approval, softening only fractionally. “The god’s mind is severely damaged,” he says flatly. “It must be put back together before it deteriorates further. To this end, we require access to your memories. And, as your young friend so eloquently stated, this cannot be accomplished by _talking_. No matter your talent in that particular area.”

Monica snorts. “I’ll give you—”

“The memories must be real,” he presses, ignoring her. “ _Experienced_ , not merely _recounted_. The difference is critical.” He regards Monica steadily, earnestly, letting her see his sincerity. “It is not a simple request. The process will be invasive, and will require absolute trust on your part. I can only attempt to assure you, as best I can, that I will do no more than what is absolutely necessary for your friend’s recovery.”

Perhaps it is the time they’ve spent connected, his mind pressing in on her own, holding the cracks together by sheer force of will, but Sandy believes him completely.

Monica does not. She turns back to Tripitaka, anguish and suspicion clouding her face. “You actually trust this... this _demon_?”

“Yes.” Said without a moment’s hesitation. She glances at Sandy, takes her hand, and looks Monica in the eye. “She’s really sick, Monica. And he’s our only—”

“No,” Sandy interrupts, deathly quiet. “Not ‘sick’. I’m _broken_. My mind in pieces. Broken.”

“Sandy—”

She shakes her head, pulling her hand away and distancing herself as best she can.

“Tripitaka doesn’t like to use that word,” she says to Monica. “But it is the truth, whether she will admit it or not.” She takes a breath, tries to speak with some small measure of coherence. “Something dreadful happened to me. Something that you might remember, but I don’t. Because whatever it was, it tore my mind apart. Fractures and cracks and sharp edges, shards and fragments everywhere, nothing where it should be. Holes in my head and nothing to fill them. _Broken_.”

Tripitaka looks heartbroken. Monica just looks sick. “All right...”

“The Shaman wants to help,” Sandy goes on. “He believes he can use your memories to help me rebuild my own. He believes that will enable him to...” She swallows thickly. It’s still so hard, so painful to say it. “...to _fix_ me.”

“Succinctly put,” the Shaman murmurs, low but approving, then turns back to Monica. “I have considerable experience in weaving the fabric of gods’ minds.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that.”

“My point,” he says tersely, “is that I know what I am doing.”

Monica studies him for a long, long time, not speaking, like she’s trying to wring the honesty — or lack of it — out of him with her eye.

Sandy watches her watching him, breathless and scared and so lost. She recalls so little about Monica, only that the sound of her name fills her with warmth and a fierce protectiveness, only that something about her makes her feel simultaneously safe and frightened for her life. It is confusing, and trying too hard to pick the feelings apart makes her head start to ache.

She stops. Closes her eyes, tries to close her mind, and waits.

Finally, after a long, uncomfortable silence, Monica growls her surrender. Sandy blinks her eyes open, bleary and unfocused, and watches her throw up her hands.

“You’d better be right about this girlie,” she snaps at last, to Sandy and Tripitaka both. “I’m not in the habit of putting my darkest memories in the hands of demons.”

“Neither am I,” Sandy murmurs, low enough that she hopes she won’t be heard. “But at least yours are in one piece to begin with.”

There is no response to that, of course, and Monica is wise enough not to try for one. She just sighs, shakes her head, and ruffles Sandy’s hair like a chiding, impatient mother. The contact makes Sandy’s chest tighten, makes something infinitely powerful well up inside her, a long-buried feeling that has no name; the force of it almost blinds her, leaves her gasping for air, and it is only after Monica lets her go and turns her face away that her chest loosens enough to draw breath.

“Thank you,” Tripitaka says, in a hoarse, ragged whisper. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Monica grits out. She sounds serious, but there’s a small half-smile tugging at her lips that says she’s mostly calmed down. “We do nothing until I’ve got some food into you. _Both_ of you. And if your new friend has a problem with that, he’s welcome to go and make himself useful somewhere else.”

If the Shaman does have a problem, he wisely chooses to keep it to himself.

*

He explains the process, in as much detail as he can, while the rest of them eat.

“The labour will be entirely mine,” he says delicately. “All you need to do is remember.”

Monica snorts her derision. “Oh, is _that_ all?”

“Yes.” Said without irony, as though he is utterly oblivious to her tone and her feelings towards him. That’s probably best for everyone, Sandy thinks, so long as Monica doesn’t suddenly develop a thinner skin. “You must focus your thoughts, guide us to the appropriate moments in your shared past. The mind of a human is not nearly so powerful as that of a god, but it is your mind nonetheless, and you will have absolute control over what we see and where we go. Should you wish to cast us out at any time, you need only think and it will be done.”

Monica nods, and a bit of the cynicism bleeds out. Relieved, no doubt, to know that she can banish the demon with only a thought. Must be nice, Sandy thinks, to have such faith in one’s own mind.

“Good,” she hears herself mumble. “Much better when someone else is in charge. Didn’t do so well the last time it was me.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Tripitaka reminds her. “Even the Shaman said so.”

He nods his affirmation, though that doesn’t make Sandy feel any better. “Still,” she says, staring miserably into her broth. “Feels much safer, being a witness.”

“You won’t be a witness,” the Shaman points out, somewhat impatiently. “As I have told you repeatedly, her memories will be _experienced_. Your mind needs to absorb them, to integrate them with your own and piece together your truth from hers. It is...” He sighs, the frustration of someone unaccustomed to expressing himself. “It is not easy to explain.”

Sandy doesn’t understand, but she doesn’t push. Wouldn’t grasp it any better, she knows, even if he talked her through it a thousand more times. She is no better at comprehension than he is at explaining; between the two of them it’s a wonder they can communicate at all.

“Will she know who she is?” Tripitaka asks, looking a little nervous.

“She will experience the human’s memories as if they were her own,” he says. “Whether she remains herself after the journey is over... well, that part is up to you.”

Tripitaka blanches. “Wonderful.”

“ _You_ will be a witness,” the Shaman goes on. “You will see everything as an outsider, and you will keep your friend tethered to herself. Be present; if we are fortunate, that will be enough to keep her grounded and aware once we return. If not...” He glances at Sandy, then sighs again. “If not, then speak to her. Remind her. Hold on to her, and allow her to hold on to you in turn.”

Tripitaka nods. She looks rather less confused than Sandy feels, which can only be a good thing.

“This isn’t my first time accompanying a god through lost memories,” she says quietly.

“Ah, yes.” His smile is wry, and just a little sharp. “Our dear Monkey King. Simpler, of course, because the memories were all his own. Simpler as well, because _he_ is simple.”

Naturally, that’s the moment Monkey chooses to burst through the door.

“Who’re you calling ‘simple’?”

“If the crown fits,” the Shaman quips. “In any case, it was not meant as an insult... this time.”

Monkey does not look especially placated. “This time?”

“This time.” He studies him for a beat, then turns back to Sandy and Tripitaka. “In cases like this, simplicity is preferred. The simpler the situation, the less unpleasant for everyone.”

Monkey grunts. He clearly wants to retaliate somehow, but seems unable to figure out a good comeback to an insult that was — supposedly — not intended as one. In the end, he settles for rolling his eyes and snatching a chunk of bread from Tripitaka’s plate.

Tripitaka gamely pretends not to notice. “Is Locke out of the way?” she asks him, like that’s the only thing in the world that matters.

“Safe and sound,” Pigsy says, shuffling into the room. He looks subdued and sad, but when he shuts the door behind him he leaves his distractions on the other side. “So. We good to go?”

“As soon as your friends overcome their absurd preoccupation with nourishment and idle conversation,” the Shaman mutters.

Which they do, entirely too soon.

The broth settles heavily in Sandy’s stomach, already churning with nervousness, and Tripitaka’s hand feels clammy and twitchy in her own; Monica doesn’t show any signs of it, but Sandy has a feeling she’s not as composed as she wants them to believe. It is comforting, she thinks, not being the only one weak with dread.

As soon as she’s cleared away the leftovers, Monica turns to Monkey and Pigsy, hands on hips and shoulders straight, and says in a firm, steady tone, “I hope one of you knows how to tend bar, because you’ve both just been promoted.”

They look at each other, blinking their confusion. Then, as one, they both turn to Tripitaka, as though expecting her to somehow bail them out.

She clears her throat, biting her lip to keep from smiling.

“I mean...” A delicate cough. “She’s doing us a favour. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her to lose business.”

“Besides,” Monica says flatly, “it’ll give you two layabouts something useful to do while the rest of us are having our brains stir-fried.”

And before either one of them so much as opens their mouths, she chases them out into the main tavern.

Sandy does not laugh. But for the first time in too long, she feels like maybe she could.

*

And then the moment is gone, replaced by something far heavier.

They retire to Monica’s bedroom, a modest little room with very little to say for itself. Small bed, small chair, small mirror, and a dusty old window that looks like it’s never been opened.

“Not much, but it’s mine,” Monica says, noting the way they’re looking about the place. “About the only thing in this bloody town that is.”

She’s smiling a little as she says it, though, and Sandy doesn’t need hear the fondness in her voice to know that she feels it. Everyone knows she’d give her life for Palawa if she had to, that she is the beating heart of this village, and it is the centre of hers.

Swallowing thickly, Sandy looks around, tries to orient herself with the room. Avoids the mirror, as best she can, not wanting to see how pale her face is, how unkempt her hair, how poorly her makeshift clothes fit her. Doesn’t want to see any part of herself right now, so she keeps her eyes on the bed and her hand in Tripitaka’s, forces her breath to stay in her chest, and does not, _does not_ panic.

She settles on the floor with her back to the bed, and pulls Tripitaka down to sit beside her. “Don’t let me go,” she whispers, unashamed of how small and scared she must sound. “Please, don’t...”

“Never,” Tripitaka whispers back, and squeezes her hand until they both stop trembling. “Whatever happens, whatever we see or experience. I’ll be right here.”

The Shaman kneels carefully in front of Monica, fingers poised to touch her temples.

“Think of the first memory you have of her,” he instructs. “The earliest moments shared between the two of you. Bring that memory to the surface, as wholly and completely as you are able. Think of nothing but that time. Allow it to consume you.”

“Lovely word choice,” Monica grumbles, but she does as he says. Eyes closed, she slows her breathing. “Go on, then. Do your whatever-it-is. And if I don’t come out of this alive, neither will you.”

The Shaman chuckles, wry but without a trace of humour.

“That is truer than you know,” he says. Then, without another word, he touches his hands to her face, slows his breathing to match hers, and closes his eyes. “ _Remember_.”

They focus together, connected, for a moment that seems like a lifetime; watching them, Sandy is convinced her heart’s no longer beating. Then, when the Shaman turns away from Monica — eyes shut, breathing even, as though in a trance — and reaches for her and Tripitaka, it thunders back to life, pounding against the wall of her chest until her ribs hurt. Panic floods her senses, tearing through every part of her, and she can’t move, she can’t breathe, she can’t—

And then he is there, one hand on her face, the other on Tripitaka’s, and he is murmuring words she can’t make out, static and noise in the back of her mind, madness and madness and—

And then, all of a sudden, she can hear Tripitaka’s heartbeat, can feel its rhythm catch and strike against her own. Calm, slow, so much stronger than Sandy’s, so much stronger than a human’s should be—

And for less than a second, a fraction of a fraction of a second, they are one and the same, her and Tripitaka, their hearts beating in rhythm, their blood rushing in the same direction, shared like their breathing, their lives, every part of them. And it is unfathomable and it is depthless, and it is the most intimate thing Sandy has ever known—

And then it’s over.

A door slammed shut inside of her, and she is alone, floating in nothing, nothing, _nothing_ , colourless and lifeless, nothing all around her, no light, no dark, no sensation, just—

Just her.

Alone.

Like always.

And she closes her eyes, and she wills it to disappear, wills the nothing to become _something_ , wills it to go away, to dissolve, to shrink and shrink until it’s less vast, less terrible, less torturous, until it is _less_ , until it is something she can see and feel and hold, something she can grasp in both hands, something she can take and twist and wrap around her, pull it so tight it holds her completely and—

And she breathes it in—

And she bleeds it out—

And she breathes and bleeds and burns and blazes and—

And—

Becomes.

**

_She found her in the alley behind the tavern._

_Scrawny, shivering, soaked to the skin. A sad, sorry little thing, all long limbs and jutting bones, cowering behind the rubbish bins like she really thought they could hide her. Like she believed, if she closed her eyes and pretended hard enough, she could make herself invisible._

_A bit of a tragedy, really. Monica had seen her fair share of orphans and urchins — more and more each day, it seemed, since the demon Locke had settled in and claimed the village for herself — but not too many who tried to hide. Most were too hungry to even try, figuring they could beg a feed or scrounge a cup of something warm. The rest, if not so desperate, were smart enough to know there was no point._

_Two things everyone knew about Monica. Firstly, that she had no patience for charity cases; even the monks, with all their hopes and prayers and kindness, got sent away with a ‘tsk’ and a wave of her frying pan. Secondly, that she had the keenest eyes in Palawa; didn’t matter the time of day or night, nothing got past her. No thieves, no swindlers, certainly no shivering little urchins._

_No sense even trying to get one over on her; everyone knew that. And this one, stupid enough to make the effort anyway, wasn’t even very good at it._

_Too bloody noisy, for a start. Sniffling and whimpering, carrying on like the world wouldn’t be ready with a blade if it caught her, like it was perfectly safe to be skulking around in dark alleys in the middle of the night. Like the whole blasted village wasn’t a haven for demons or demon loyalists these days. Like a falling tear couldn’t get you killed if the wrong person saw it in the wrong moment._

_Monica watched her from the doorway, let the light from the tavern illuminate the huddled body. Dirt streaking her face, clothes ragged and torn. Couldn’t be older than eight or nine, plenty of growing still to do before those lean, lanky limbs would fit the rest of her. Definitely not from around here, going by the pale skin and eerie, colourless eyes. Not from the nearby villages either, if Monica was any judge of it; frantic parents wringing their hands somewhere leagues from here, most likely, or else relieved to suddenly have one less mouth to feed._

_Didn’t much like the light either, if her reactions were anything to go by. She flinched and cringed when it struck her eyes, ducking back behind the bins like she could disappear on a whim. Bloody pointless, Monica thought, and a waste of everyone’s time._

_Patience already growing thin, she snapped, “Come on out from there.”_

_The urchin hesitated, of course. Smart move, that. No reason to trust a stranger, especially one in a dark alley in the dead of night in a town like Palawa. No reason not to think she wouldn’t be beaten to within an inch of her life for trespassing or shipped back to whatever she was running from or simply killed on the spot. Bigger folks were snuffed out for less round here, and there was no telling where this one had come from._

_Monica clicked her tongue. “Quick-sharp, now. Before I start yelling for the authorities.”_

_She wouldn’t, of course, but the kid had no way of knowing that. She crawled out grudgingly, and if Monica wasn’t at the end of her patience the pout on her face might be endearing._

_A quick examination revealed little more than she’d already figured out. No obvious signs of violence or cruelty. No bruises or blood, no hollowed-out phantoms lurking behind her eyes. Just a kid, wet and cold and bedraggled. Best bet, she’d got lost and kept on walking until she hit civilisation. Hours, definitely. Days, probably. Could be a week or more since she last saw a warm bed or a hot meal._

_She didn’t speak. Afraid to, most likely. The frying pan probably wasn’t helping, so Monica tossed the thing back inside before trying again._

_“Not from around here, are you?”_

_A long, patience-fraying silence. Then, finally:_

_“Don’t know.”_

_She was hoarse. Possibly from lack of speech, more likely from crying; the dried salt-tracks on her face spoke as loud as the rust in her throat. Probably catching a chill too, what with all that time out in the cold. Monica winced, sympathy waging war with the part of her that really, really didn’t need this._

_“What’s your story?” She tried to keep her voice soft; by her own admission, it wasn’t a talent she had in any large measure. “Runaway? Orphan? Wandered off and got lost?”_

_Another silence, longer and more protracted. It didn’t take someone as perceptive as Monica to see that the poor thing was scared out of her wits. Probably never been alone before. Made sense if she’d just gotten lost, though that didn’t explain why she was hiding in the shadows in the dead of night. From Monica’s experience, most lost little lambs would cling to any old skirt that got close enough, desperate for human contact, a kind voice or someone who might help them get home. This one kept her distance; more, she cringed and cowered every time Monica opened her mouth. Like she was almost as scared of human contact as she was of being alone._

_Odd, to be sure. But only one way to get answers. Monica folded her arms, clicked her tongue to show her impatience._

_Finally, hesitantly, the girl mumbled, “No.”_

_Monica sighed. “Could you be a tad more specific? No to which one?” Silence. She sighed again, counted to ten, then pressed, “All of them?”_

_“Yes.”_

_Monosyllabic. Wonderful._

_Possibly uneducated, possibly just stupid. No way to know for sure, and they weren’t getting any closer to a coherent answer standing out there in the cold._

_“Fair enough,” Monica said, biting down on her frustration so as not to terrify the poor thing even more. “Why don’t you come inside? We can get you all warm and dry, get some food in you, and then you can tell me what the bloody hell you’re doing here.”_

_“No.” She was shivering again, harder now. Shock, maybe? Could be just as devastating as the cold, Monica knew. “No, please.”_

_“Don’t be silly. You’ll catch your death out here. Now come along—”_

_“No!” She shook her head, emphatic, terrified. “I’m dangerous!”_

_Monica laughed. Couldn’t help it. “Girl, I’ve seen potatoes more dangerous than you.”_

_“You don’t understand—”_

_“I don’t need to.” She swallowed her laughter, tried as hard as she could to look earnest. “I’ve faced down monsters you can’t even imagine. Trust me when I say I can handle myself.”_

_It was true enough; any fool could see that. Still, though, it took a while for the girl to accept what her eyes must surely be telling her, and then to creep a little further forwards._

_“Promise?”_

_“Promise.” The softness of her voice surprised her. She wasn’t usually this patient with strays, but something in that sad, wretched face was touching. “Come on, now. That’s right. Let’s get you warmed up, then we can see about getting a coherent sentence out of you. That sound like something you can do?”_

_The girl licked her lips. They were dangerously pale, almost blue._

_“...maybe?”_

_Monica sighed. “Close enough.”_

_For now, she supposed, it would have to be._

*

_Inside, the tavern was empty._

_Had been for hours, of course, even the worst of the drunkards skulking off long ago back to their loved ones or their loneliness. There wasn’t much in the way of peace and quiet in a place known for its debauchery, but Monica made do with what she had; the twilight hours were hers and hers alone._

_Until now, apparently._

_The girl couldn’t seem to stop shivering, even inside, so Monica sat her down in front of the fire and helped her to peel off her wet clothes. No bruises on her body, no evidence of mistreatment; that, at least, was promising. Her thinness was telling too, in its own way: gaunt in the way of sudden starvation. Days without a meal, most likely, and the callouses on her feet suggested a very long walk. Wherever she’d wandered from, it seemed the trek had left her worse off than whatever she’d left behind._

_Deathly pale, though. Salt and sand sticking to everything, like she’d come up out of the sea and just kept walking, and the rattling of her breath said that a chill was coming on fast._

_“Here,” Monica said, wrapping a big old blanket around her shoulders. “Sit there for a spell. Get yourself warm and dry, try and shake off the cold. I’ll go scrounge some leftovers.”_

_The girl nodded mutely. Not expecting more of a reaction than that, Monica patted her shoulder as gently as she could, then turned towards the kitchen—_

_—and promptly jumped out of her skin when a slender, shaking hand grabbed her wrist, holding on with a desperate strength._

_“Please.” Her voice was a rasp, rusted iron grating on stone. “No fish.”_

_That was a new one. Monica stifled her amusement, kept her expression neutral. “Not much danger of that round here,” she said, not unkindly. “We’re leagues away from the nearest fishing village, and water’s scarce enough as it is.”_

_The girl whimpered, a soft sort of half-sob that could have been relief or pain._

_Monica leaned in, taking a good long look at her face. A hundred different emotions all at once, all overlaid with confusion, like she didn’t know how to feel and so was trying to feel everything all at once. Upset, frightened, anxious, hopeful, and completely, utterly lost. Poor thing must be a long, long way from wherever she started._

_She opened and closed her mouth a few times, obviously trying to give voice to her confused feelings, but she didn’t seem able to make another sound._

_Taking pity on her, Monica patted her shoulder again. “No fish, I promise.”_

_Another sob, desperate and ragged. “Thank you.”_

_Monica swallowed over a sudden lump in her throat; it took more effort than she’d care to admit to summon a smile._

_“Just try and get warm,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”_

_Well. More or less._

_There was little food left in the kitchens to begin with, and even less that she’d trust with a half-starved, shell-shocked urchin. Better to start from scratch, she decided tiredly, than try cutting corners and risking misery for everyone involved; enough root vegetables lying around to fix a simple broth, and time enough to try and sweet-talk a little more information while it simmered._

_“So, then,” she said, as conversational as she could, while the smell of spices filled the room. “What’s this rubbish about you being dangerous? I could lift three of you with one arm.”_

_The girl shook her head. She looked a little less ragged now, with some heat back in her little body, though her face remained as pale as ever._

_“Not like that,” she mumbled stubbornly. “Not like...”_

_Monica quirked a brow. She looked down at the long limbs and lanky torso, her whole body all but smothered by the blankets. “Like what, then?” she pressed. “A scrawny little thing like you...”_

_The girl swallowed convulsively, bit her lip, then blurted out, tears welling, “I’m a demon.”_

_Monica couldn’t help herself; not for the first time, she burst out laughing._

_“You?” She forced herself to grow serious, at least a little bit. “No bloody chance. Who in the world put that kind of nonsense in your head?”_

_Silence._

_A dark, heavy silence, and the confused, fearful look dissolved into something utterly devastated. Something worse than heartbreak, worse than loss or grief, something like—_

_“Ah.”_

_Well, it would hardly be the first time, now, would it?_

_In these dark times, demons were everywhere, even when they weren’t. Monica had lost count of the stories she’d heard, this or that family casting out one of its own when they started to behave strange or different. A mother strangling her newborn son after he was born with the wrong coloured eyes, a brother terrified of his sister because she saw things he couldn’t, the list went on._

_All bloody nonsense, of course — any idiot with half a brain-cell knew that demons didn’t come into the world that way — but in a world where humans disappeared daily, most folks lived by the creed that you could never be too careful._

_Even against your own, it seemed._

_Poor little thing._

_“What happened?” Monica asked, much softer now. “They hear you talking to yourself? Took your bad dreams as bad omens?”_

_The girl shook her head. The tears were gleaming brighter now, catching the light and making her strange eyes seem even stranger. Monica touched her cheek with a warm, careful hand, soothing and stilling her a little. No sense spilling salt all over her clean floor._

_“Didn’t know,” the girl whispered. “Didn’t know it was bad. Didn’t know it made me a demon. But they were so scared. They were so scared and in so much pain, so much, and I... I couldn’t bear it, I couldn’t...”_

_She shook her head, voice descending into frenzied incoherence. Thunder rumbled outside, muffling whatever she was trying to say, and Monica waited for it to roll on past._

_“Who was scared?” she asked, when it grew quiet. “Who was in pain?”_

_The girl looked up, shivering from head to toe. “The fish.”_

_Ah. Of course._

_Explained a lot, that did, though Monica rather wished it didn’t._

_“So,” she said, slow and careful, not wanting to cause any more misery than she had to, “they kicked you out — your family — because you told them the fish were scared and in pain?”_

_A hoarse, strangled sob. “Yes.”_

_Monosyllabic again. Well, she could be forgiven for that this time; it was impressive she’d said as much as she had without breaking down. This one clearly wasn’t much of a talker, either by her nature or by what she’d been through, and the ordeal had clearly left a mark on her. In any case, she’d given enough that Monica was getting a pretty clear picture of it all; no sense pushing the poor thing any harder than she had to._

_“Idiots,” Monica muttered, more to herself than the girl. “Happens all the time these days. A kid shows just a hint of empathy or, heaven forbid, the slightest trace of bloody imagination, and suddenly they’re a demon. No other explanation right?”_

_“Don’t know.” She was huddling deeper into the blanket, trying to hide. “Don’t know anything. But that’s what my father said.”_

_“Your father’s an idiot.” A little calloused, perhaps, but true enough, and maybe it would help her make peace with her newfound solitude. “Demons don’t come into the world that way, girl. Why would they? They’re thriving well enough as it is.”_

_The girl blinked owlishly from her blanket. “Thriving?”_

_“Doing well for themselves. Living happily.”_

_“Oh.” She swallowed, a sound like sandpaper. “Sounds nice.”_

_“I wouldn’t bloody know.” She wrung her hands, angry and frustrated. “Point is, they don’t need a helping hand to bring more of their kind into the world. Doing a good enough job of that already.”_

_“Are they?”_

_Monica ignored that. “Too many damned fools out there, believing the worst of everyone and everything they see, throwing away their kids in fear and ignorance. I’ve seen more demons than you’ve had hot meals, my girl, and you can believe me when I say there’s no trace of it in you.”_

_Wide eyes grew wider, still teary, but with hope too. “Really?”_

_“Really.” She smiled. “Mark my words: you’re as human as I am.”_

*

_As far as she knew, it was the truth._

_Well, mostly._

_The girl ate like the sickly, half-starved creature she was, inhaling Monica’s makeshift broth with ravenous enthusiasm, paying no mind to good manners or Monica’s gentle insistences that she shouldn’t eat too much too quickly._

_Always a fool idea, eating so fast on a days-empty stomach, but maybe the girl was tougher than Monica gave her credit for because she kept it down just fine. She looked much better when she was done, too; still too pale, still too thin, but with the swell in her belly of someone who’d finally gotten a half-decent meal. Not happy, but she was full and sleepy, and she seemed content to sit quietly by the fire while Monica rummaged around in her little bedroom for some clean, dry clothes._

_“It’s not much,” she sighed, returning with an armful of old hand-me-downs, most several times bigger than the girl herself. “But they’ll do in a pinch. Better than those waterlogged old rags, at any rate.”_

_“But they’re my clothes,” the girl whined, so much a child that it stopped Monica’s heart; for a moment her chest ached, unsure whether to break for the kid or burn for her cowardly parents. “They’re all I have!”_

_Monica took a deep breath, steadied herself and found a chiding smile._

_“Wasn’t suggesting we set them on fire, you silly thing. Just clean them up a bit. Get them washed and clean, patch up the holes, make them wearable again.” She cut a quick, nervous glance out the window, at the dark clouds gathering in the skies above. “You can’t go running around naked in this bloody weather. You’ll freeze to death.”_

_The thunder rumbled again, the clouds murmuring their agreement._

_Frowning down at her hands, the girl mumbled, “Can I stay here?”_

_Oh boy._

_Couldn’t say she hadn’t seen it coming, but it was harder than it should have been to straighten her spine and turn her voice to steel._

_“Does this place look like a bed-and-breakfast to you?”_

_A little harsh, probably, but she had her own neck to look out for, and a little tough love would spare her a whole lot of pain in the end. No sense letting the kid get attached, not when the answer had to be the same._

_“A what?”_

_Monica sighed. “Never mind.”_

_“So can I?”_

_“No!” One look at that sad little face, the wobbling lip and the tear-trembling eyes, and she forced herself to soften. “You can stick around for the night, wait for the weather to break, but that’s my limit. Has to be. You understand? I’ve got a business to run, and I can’t afford to start handing out charity. If I open my doors to one sad little sob-story, the next thing you know there’ll be urchins lining up from here to the palace, all begging for a feed or a place to put their heads down. You want that for me?”_

_“Wasn’t going to tell anyone.” She was pouting now. It wasn’t a flattering look. “Don’t even know anyone anyway. They’d never even know.”_

_“That’s not the...” Monica pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look. As I said, you can bunk down with me tonight. The rest can wait till morning. Good enough?”_

_Seemed to be, at least; the pout faded, and she mustered a tremulous, shaky little smile. No doubt she figured she’d have a shot at sweet-talking her way into another few nights come daybreak. Not bloody likely, but if it got her to stop wailing and making a fuss, Monica would let her keep the delusion._

_“Yes, please.” She still sounded rough as a razor, but at least the smile was cute. “Thank you.”_

_“You’re welcome.” It was hard to stay hard, to not give in and smile back. “How about I run you a bath, eh? Get you all warm and clean, wash some of that sea-salt off your skin.” She shook her head, trying to shake off the tremors in her heart; when did she get so damn soft? “Never seen so much bloody sand in one place.”_

_The girl looked around the room, out the window, heartbroken all over again._

_“Funny.” She spoke very quietly, and suddenly looked devastatingly old. “I’ve never been in a place where there’s so little.”_

_Watching her, Monica gave in, if only for a moment, to the sorrow in her heart. In another time or another corner of the world, perhaps she could afford to be charitable. No demons breathing down her neck, no streets full of starving urchins or skulking runaways. In a world where the homeless didn’t outnumber the happy, where people were kind because they could afford to be, because the world was kind too._

_Too long, she though sadly. Far too long since such a thing was possible, since she could even pretend it might be._

_She closed her eyes, let her breath stutter in her chest, then quietly tucked the feeling away; no point crying over what couldn’t be changed, not when there was work to be done._

_“All right,” she said, turning her voice back to steel. “Come on, then, sandy girl. Let’s see about that bath.”_

*

_It wasn’t until much later that she realised something was wrong._

_Monica had surrendered her bed to the girl — heavy-headed and half-lidded, the poor thing was barely able to drag herself out of the bath unaided, much less find a more suitable sleeping spot — and settled herself down to sleep in one of the seldom-used guest rooms. Not much in the way of overnight guests most of the time, but years of working this place had taught her to always prepare for the worst when men and liquor were involved; it was just good sense to have somewhere they could rest their head for a few hours, and hopefully cough up a few coins for the damages come morning._

_She’d been drifting for a couple of hours, lulled into sleep and then jolted awake by the rumble of thunder and the rain tapping against the windows, when a shriek cut through the noise and launched her up to her feet._

_More annoyed than worried, Monica assumed it was just a child’s natural childishness: fear of the dark, fear of being alone, fear of the cracking thunder and flashes of lightning. She’d never been a mother, more by choice than circumstance, but she knew enough to know that there were a thousand things in the night that might frighten a little girl, especially one left all alone for probably the first time in her little life._

_She fumbled her way to the bedroom, more by memory than anything else, a small lantern offering little light through the dark, narrow corridor. Irritation overriding what small shred of compassion she might have had, she threw open the door with a huff, not even bothering to knock._

_“Calm down, will you? It’s just a bit of—”_

_—rain._

_And it was, yes._

_But it was not outside._

_At this stage in her life, it took a hell of a lot to render Monica speechless. Even on her worst days, she flattered herself she’d seen and survived just about everything the world could throw at her. Human, demon, and all the beasts and monsters in between; there wasn’t much that could surprise her any more._

_But this?_

_This did it, all right, and then some._

_Rain. Indoors._

_A dark cloud hovering over the bed — her bed — growling thunder and raining down a sky’s worth of water on the girl’s head._

_No wonder the poor thing was screaming for her life. One look, and Monica was half a second away from doing the same thing herself._

_She didn’t, though. Shock or no shock, she still had some bloody dignity._

_“What in the world...?”_

_“I don’t know!” It wasn’t really an answer, so much as a wail. “I don’t know what happened and I don’t know how to stop it and I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!”_

_Monica closed her eyes, counted slowly to ten, tried to regain a little of her own composure first. Only partly successful, if she was honest, but someone had to at least try and be an adult._

_“Calm down,” she said, only mostly to the quaking girl. “Whatever it is, you won’t be getting it under control by caterwauling and carrying on.”_

_Biting down on her better judgement, her every instinct yelling at her to put as much distance as she could between herself and this child that clearly wasn’t a child, she took a deep breath and a couple of steps closer. Not near enough to get her night-clothes wet, but enough that the kid could look up at her and see that she wasn’t stuck dealing with this on her lonesome._

_Still, it took a little time for the hysterics to abate, the horrified wails slowly trickling away into whimpers and then hiccups; the downpour seemed to lessen in rhythm with the hitch of her breath. Monica watched the cloud almost as carefully as the girl, more than a little unnerved by the way it seemed to respond to her strong emotions. No hope of waving it off as a coincidence, then, more was the pity._

_Finally, after what seemed like half a lifetime of cowering and whining, the kid found her voice._

_“I’m sorry!” More of a plea than an apology, that; if Monica’s heart wasn’t still racing, it might have ached for her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it, I don’t know how it happened, please don’t send me away, please, not again, please...”_

_Monica sighed, simultaneously frustrated and grateful for the chance to focus on something normal._

_“You really think I’d send you back out into the world in this state?”_

_Another whimper, confused this time rather than scared. “But I did this! I made it happen and I don’t know how and I can’t stop it and I’m dangerous!”_

_Monica held up a hand, waited until the babbling trailed off into another series of hiccups._

_“You’re something, all right,” she said, with as much patience as she had in her. “What, exactly, I can’t say. But dangerous?” She tried to scoff, with rather limited success. “Nah. You’re still much too weedy for that.”_

_She wasn’t as convinced now as she was a few hours ago, though, and it most likely showed through in her voice. The kid blinked up at her, growing upset again, and the cloud above gave another low rumble._

_Monica sighed. Only one way to get through to the poor thing, it seemed, and so — with considerable reluctance — she leaned into the downpour and dropped a big hand onto her shoulder. Comfort, at least as much as she could manage under the circumstances, and she stayed like that, soaking herself through to the bone, for as long as it took for the girl to start breathing normally again, for the lingering dregs of panic to bleed away, for the rain to finally follow suit and stop._

_“See?” Monica didn’t even try to hide her relief. “A little rain never hurt anyone.”_

_The girl blinked miserably up at her. Rain dripping from her hair, her nose, her eyelashes; if she hadn’t looked bedraggled and pitiful before, she sure as hell did now._

_“Told you,” she mumbled, calmer but no less upset. “Told you I’m a demon.”_

_“And I told you,” Monica snapped, “I know a demon when I see one.”_

_“But you saw what I did!” Above them, the cloud grew heavier again. “How can I be anything else?”_

_“I don’t know.” Mostly true, but not nearly as much as she’d like. “Look. I don’t know what you are, or what the hell you just did, but I do know that there’s no trace of a demon in you. That’s not changed. Understand?”_

_“No.” She whimpered, bringing another shower down on their heads. “No, I don’t understand anything.”_

_Fair enough. She wasn’t the only one._

_Monica waited, as best she could, until the girl got her emotions back under wraps, until she’d whimpered and sniffled herself — and her makeshift raincloud — dry. She pulled away only when she was sure there wouldn’t be any more tears, from either source, and climbed thoughtfully to her feet, pacing the room, trying to gather her thoughts, trying to make sense of what had happened._

_No chance of explaining it away as a leaky roof; Monica had seen her share of those, but none of them had brought clouds as well as rain. Besides which, the kid was utterly convinced the thing had come out of her, and after the way she’d watched it respond to her emotions Monica wasn’t inclined to disagree._

_So. Definitely not human, then._

_Not a demon, either. She stood by that, and would until her dying breath. She’d seen dozens, probably hundreds of the blasted things in her time, and she’d never seen one summon a storm like that. Had never seen one do much of anything worth mentioning, to tell the truth, but that wasn’t the point. There were limits with demons, things they simply could not do... and playing with the weather was definitely beyond their wheelhouse. Too much power. Too much panache too, quite frankly._

_So, then, only one option left._

_And that—_

_Well. That was even less bloody likely._

_Monica knew more about the old world than most these days. Had made a study of it for more years than she’d care to remember. Long enough that a few of her older, more observant regulars might have started asking questions some time ago, if she hadn’t threatened to have their heads if they tried. It was what it was; she’d seen enough in her life to know the value of knowledge, and she had enough of the stuff to buy this town ten times over._

_She knew that there were gods still out there, straggling survivors from the old days, clinging to the last little drops of hope, weakened and watered down but still kicking, still fighting. A dying species, unimaginably powerful but hunted almost beyond salvation._

_Hard to die when you couldn’t be ravaged by age and infirmity, but the demons had done a bloody good job of finding other ways to get it done. Every year, a handful less gods and a handful more demons. And now, for the first time since the world was born, the gods were on the brink of annihilation. She never thought she’d see the day, but here it was, happening right before her eyes._

_Had been for generations now. Long enough for the world to be transformed. Long enough for—_

_Well._

_Evolution was capable of great miracles, Monica knew, when the alternative was extinction. And the gods of old, everyone knew, were more than a little miraculous already._

_She looked down at the girl, wheels turning in her head._

_Wailing and whimpering, a ragged wreck of a would-be human. Scared of everything, and her own shadow most of all. Not exactly the second coming they’d all been waiting for._

_Powerful, though. And tender-hearted. They’d need a damn sight more of both those things if the resistance — hell, if the world — was going to survive._

_How to explain all that to a child, though? Assuming it was true in the first place. How to look in the eye of this shivering, soaking, scared little girl and tell her that maybe — just maybe — there was something much more important than demon blood in her veins? That maybe she was made for something bigger, something incredible? The kid couldn’t even make it through the night without falling to bits; what chance would she have with a truth that could change the world?_

_Time enough to think on that, of course. First, she had to be sure. No sense causing the poor thing even more distress, not until she knew for certain that it was worth it._

_So. Time for a second opinion. Someone almost as worldly as she was. Someone with wisdom to temper her knowledge, to add their researches to her own. And Monica knew of only one place to find someone like that._

_She sighed._

_Taking a moment to put herself back together, to steel herself for the task ahead, she sat herself back down on the edge of the bed. It was a mess now, soaked through with supernatural rain, but she paid that no heed. Leaning in, as gentle as she could, she pushed the girl’s sodden, tangled hair back away from her face, and looked deep into her eyes. Pale and scared, with no idea of what awaited her on the other side of this dark, storm-tossed night; if she could afford to have a heart, Monica was sure it would be breaking._

_“Well, sandy girl,” she said, “looks like you’ll be sticking around after all.”_

_And she squeezed her shaking hands, and prayed with all her might that the morning would prove her wrong._

**

“Enough.”

A burst of light, a crack inside her head, and Sandy is herself again.

Mostly herself, anyway.

She’s flat on her back, the ceiling swerving above her, and she feels—

 _Pain_.

Her head is screaming, pulses and pulses of skull-splitting agony; it cuts through everything, leaves her breathless and half-blind. The room lurches and grows dim; for a moment, it seems to shrink down to a pinprick, no floor or walls, nothing but the swaying ceiling and the drilling in her brain.

She sits up, clutching her head with one hand, scrambling and fumbling with the other for something, anything she can touch and hold, anything solid enough to ground her, to—

 _Tether_.

And there it is: Tripitaka’s hand, ready and waiting and open, just as it always is.

Sandy chokes on her relief. She grabs it, grabs her, and holds on with every ounce of strength she has.

Far above her, sounding nearly as breathless as she feels, the Shaman says, “This will pass.”

Sandy blinks up at him through bleary, tear-filled eyes; his face is ash-grey and he is bracing against the wall, breathing so heavily his shoulders shake. As her vision slowly clears, she recognises her own pain in his eyes, reflected tenfold.

“What...” Speaking is almost impossible. Her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth, and making even the smallest sound sends a burst of fresh pain tearing through her. “What... are you... doing?”

“Silence.” He sounds as awful as she feels, but perhaps talking is less of an effort for him than it is for her, because he is able to keep going. “Your mind is processing a great deal of new... _old_... information. I am attempting to share the burden... to make the task as painless for you as possible.”

Sandy moans. Her head threatens to explode. “This... is not... painless.”

“Compared to what it would be without my aid,” he grunts, “I can assure you it is.”

Sandy doesn’t argue. Couldn’t, even if she wanted to; it’s too hard to make words.

So, instead, she buries her face in Tripitaka’s robes, clings to the fabric like a lifeline, and tries not to listen to Monica’s husky voice above as she mutters and grumbles and insists that they’re all just being melodramatic.

Tripitaka holds her close, rocks her a little in her arms. Soothes her, as best she can, without really being able to do anything tangible. Just her presence is enough, though, as it always is; after walking the corridors of her own past, of being lost and lonely and cold and frightened and small, Sandy finds it comforting beyond words just to be herself again, to be here, and as whole as she’s ever been, to be in someone’s arms and feel warmed.

Gently, Tripitaka says to the Shaman, “Is this why you pulled us out?”

He grunts. Must be in terrible pain, Sandy muses dizzily, to sound so undignified.

“Piece by piece,” he says, slow and steady. His voice grows stronger with each word, and the pain in Sandy’s head subsides a little in harmony with them. “We must not attempt too much at once.”

He breathes carefully for a few more moments, then exhales in a long gasp. Sandy feels the pressure on her skull abate as well, like the flood of relief after a crippling spasm. She sits up again, gasping for breath, and tries to feel out her mind, tries to find the place in her memory that was—

— _here_.

The room is both familiar and not, and the more aware she becomes of the world around her the more her body feels the same way. She feels like both versions of herself at the same time, small and tall, strong and scrawny, and for a long, disoriented moment she feels like she’s occupying two spaces at once. She is a child but she is grown, a lonely poet and a frightened fisherman’s daughter; in the few moments before the world rights itself inside her head, the conflicting sensations threaten to pull her apart.

Then she blinks, and the world and her mind are back where they should be.

“Excellent,” the Shaman says, sounding rather proud. “A most promising start.”

“If this is excellent,” Sandy rasps, “do I want to know what ‘bad’ would be?”

He chuckles. “You certainly do not.”

And so far as he’s concerned, that’s the end of that. He studies her for another moment, as though making sure she’s not about to collapse, then stumbles over to the bed and sits down without bothering to ask Monica for permission. No doubt he feels he’s done more than enough to deserve the lapse in etiquette, and in any case he looks rather like he would fall over if the bed wasn’t there to catch him. Regardless, Monica keeps her opinion on the matter to herself, letting him do as he pleases.

“Suppose it’s too much to hope that’s all you need from me?” she asks, sounding drained and wan.

“I’m afraid so,” the Shaman says. He doesn’t lie down, but he looks like he desperately wants to. Still dizzy, Sandy can relate. “This was but a beginning, slow and careful. ‘Testing the waters’, as your kind would say.”

Sandy can’t quite tell whether ‘your kind’ means gods or humans or fishermen’s daughters, but she’s too tired to ask. Now that the pain is gone, her mind feels like it’s humming, vibrations tickling the inside of her skull; it is not nearly as unpleasant as the pain was, but it is rather unsettling just the same.

Tripitaka touches her forehead, frowns into her eyes. “Feeling okay?”

“Yes.” She breathes through her nose, rides out the unpleasant feeling as she would a bumpy journey, a little motion-sick but otherwise unharmed. “I think so. Yes.”

“Good.” She shuffles in a little closer, until their bodies are touching at shoulder and hip, until she’s got one arm slung around Sandy’s waist and the other still touching her face, so close and so warm. “That was... an experience.”

“You can say that again,” Monica says softly. She’s studying the Shaman, eye narrowed, still very suspicious. “Still feel like myself, but how can I know for sure what you’ve been doing in there?”

“I assure you,” he says, looking drained, “I have no interest in your little mind. And even if I did, I would hardly need to be subtle.”

No doubt wanting to clear the air before the tension can spread, Tripitaka clears her throat.

Looking up at Monica, a little awestruck and a little dazed, she says, “You looked exactly the same as now.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Tripitaka shakes her head. “I mean, you haven’t aged _at all_. All those years... I don’t know how many, but it has to be a lot, right? And you still...” She shakes her head. “I would’ve assumed it was this week. I mean, if it wasn’t for the...”

She trails off, looking uncomfortable.

Monica, however, does not. No doubt this isn’t the first time someone’s brought unwanted attention to her condition; taking it in stride, she touches her eyepiece, smiles sadly, and says, “Time and experience bring change on us all.”

“Not much, though,” Tripitaka says, pushing on seemingly in spite of herself. “How old _are_ you?”

The glare Monica shoots her could freeze a volcano mid-explosion.

“Old enough to recall the days when young people knew not to ask that,” she says archly.

And that, it seems, is sas much as they’re going to get out of her.

Sandy closes her eyes, blocks out as much of the world around her as she can. Holding herself as still as she can, she focuses Tripitaka’s body next to hers, on the rhythm of movement as she breathes, the rustle of her robes and the hum of her voice on each exhale. Easier, she’s learned, to try and catch the rhythm of someone else’s breathing than try to concentrate on her own.

She feels unsteady.

Old and young, herself, but with a lingering afterimage of someone else as well. She remembers looking down at herself through Monica’s eyes, remembers feeling annoyed, frustrated, impatient, remembers a faint glimmer of compassion too, empathy hammering at her ribcage against her will. She remembers resentment, remembers fearing for her own safety, _what if they find out, what if they tear this place apart, what if, what if...?_

And she wonders, remembering all these feelings as if they were her own, why a stranger in a tavern some thousand leagues from home could swallow them down where her own parents could not.

She makes a small sound, a sob strangling in her throat, and Tripitaka’s arm goes tight around her waist. “It’s okay,” she whispers, hushed and private.

And Sandy knows that it’s true, knows that the lingering loneliness and rejection is not truly hers, has not been hers in many years. She steadies herself, opens her eyes and looks up to find Monica gazing down at her from the bed, grief and countless years glimmering in her eyes.

“It will pass,” the Shaman says quietly. As usual, he doesn’t need to ask what she’s feeling; he simply knows. “Her memories will dissipate naturally, once yours have recovered enough to sustain themselves.”

Sandy nods, pretending that makes any kind of sense.

She can feel it happening, the pulsing in her head giving way to more clarity; already, she half-remembers. Remembers being frightened, at least, remembers being lost and sad and completely alone for the first time in her life. Remembers the pains in her chest, the cold and rain settling in her lungs; she has a vague awareness of it staying there for quite some time, but that part is still hazy and indistinct. Remembers looking up at Monica, a hulk of a woman with a stern smile and piercing eyes, remembers feeling—

“ _Safe_.”

She doesn’t realise she’s said it aloud until she looks up and finds them all staring. Tripitaka squeezes her hand, but Sandy only has eyes for Monica, frowning down at her from the bed.

“You what?”

Her voice is tight, though, edgy, like she already knows.

Sandy wets her lips. “You made me feel safe,” she whispers. “I remember that now. Even when you said I couldn’t stay, still somehow you made me...” She pauses, suddenly swallowing back tears. “You made me feel so safe.”

“Did I, now?” Her expression grows clouded, all of a sudden, lined with depthless, incalculable pain. “Well, then. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you that way.”

And with that, she clambers off the bed and storms out of the room.

*

At the Shaman’s suggestion, Sandy steps outside for some fresh air.

“We will resume our efforts in the morning,” he tells her, making it quite clear that this is not a subject for discussion. “Until then, I suggest you and I both take some time to recuperate.”

Sandy doesn’t argue. Could, maybe, but doesn’t want to. Her mind is still sore, a dull pulsing ache, like a muscle after too much exertion; she does not look forward to the inevitability of sleep, but she is exhausted beyond words.

Tripitaka stays with her, of course. She has an odd look on her face, pinched and unsettled, and when she speaks to the Shaman it is with obvious, tangible discomfort.

“Is there anything I should do?”

The Shaman considers this for a moment; they’re both looking at her, staring, like they expect her to fall apart before their eyes. Sandy ducks her head and pretends not to notice.

“Stay by her side,” he says at last. “Engage with her. Be present. If she becomes dizzy or unwell, ensure that she is seated and as comfortable as possible.” He spreads his arms in a sort of shrug. “Treat her as you would anyone recovering from a major injury: with care and diligence.”

It is strange to hear those words — ‘care’ and ‘diligence’ — from the mouth of a demon, but Tripitaka seems to take it in stride, as if he were anyone else. She stops short of asking whether he’ll be all right too, but it’s clear from the look on her face that she wants to. Sandy wants it too, to show compassion to someone who is helping, who has shown a willingness to suffer so that she might not suffer so much herself, but he is still a demon — an enemy who has inflicted a great deal of misery on her and the people she cares about — and that muddies things rather more than she might like.

One day, perhaps, she will see him as the ally he is slowly becoming. But before she can claim to know him, she needs to learn and understand more of herself.

Outside, just her and Tripitaka, they wander the streets. Aimless, without a destination, simply walking and wearing their bodies down to match their minds.

It is strange, Sandy thinks, to walk the streets in daylight, to expose herself to being seen, to being known. The last time she was here, when Palawa was as close to a home as she’d ever had, she couldn’t have imagined doing such a thing. Even now, months later, transformed and renewed and new, still her body tenses, flinching at the slightest sound, bracing like it always did before, waiting for the next insult, the next threat, the next assault.

Tripitaka is calmer, if not by much. She keeps one hand on Sandy at all times, gripping her arm or her hand or pressed against the small of her back, like she thinks she’ll fall over without someone to hold her steady; Sandy might be a little affronted, only she’s not entirely convinced she’s wrong. Her other hand, the one not being used for compassion, she keeps at her side, fingers clenching and unclenching, never quite making a fist but ever getting a little closer. Looking at it, Sandy’s stomach turns and sinks.

“Are you upset?” she asks, after a short silence. “Was that... did it hurt you too?”

“No.” Too quick, and it comes with tension; her hand, resting on Sandy’s back just now, becomes a leaden weight. “No, it wasn’t painful. It wasn’t... I mean, not like it was for you.” She frowns, thoughtful and a little annoyed, then clarifies: “My head’s fine.”

Too quiet, too many hidden words. Sandy feels her muscles grow tight. “Then what?”

“Nothing.” Said in a way that means the opposite. She holds on to the lie for a moment, just long enough for Sandy to pull away, then sighs and surrenders the truth. “I just... I mean, I knew it was... I knew you were young. You told me that. But I didn’t expect to see...” She sighs, shaking her head with frustration. Her free hand, at her side, clenches ever closer to the fist she’ll never make. “You were so _small_.”

Sandy’s mouth goes dry. She doesn’t know why. “I was, yes.”

Now that she remembers, pieces of it, at least, it is painful for her as well. The moment died long ago, buried under so many years, so many other pains poured on top of it, and yet here it is, brought to life all over again.

It’s all she can do to hold in her mind the truth that she is not so young or so small now, that she has not been that way in a very long time. She is not the scared, abandoned child she was in that memory, but a part of her feels so close she could touch it. It is her past, yes, but she is living it now, as though for the first time.

“I’m not used to seeing you that way,” Tripitaka says softly. Her eyes are even darker than normal when Sandy looks down into them, and shimmering with feeling. “And I know you told me all about it. How young you were, how much you cried. But seeing it... seeing _you_...”

Sandy turns her face away. Her younger self grates along her mind, under her skin, a whimper that wants so badly to become a wail.

“I think,” she says, “that she’s been pushing at me for a very long time.”

Tripitaka blinks, shaken out of her sorrow. “She? The younger you?”

Sandy nods. Thinking about it makes her feel deeply exhausted, but she tries for Tripitaka. “Don’t know what else to call her. She’s me, only I don’t know her at all.”

“I...” Whatever she was going to say, she swallows it and nods. “Okay.”

It is comforting, the way she doesn’t press on her, the way she doesn’t insist that her words, her thoughts makes no sense. Sandy is acutely aware of this; she doesn’t need it pointed out. There is nothing — neither inside nor outside her head — that makes sense to her right now, and it is a comfort beyond measure that Tripitaka realises this and doesn’t try to force it to.

“If she didn’t exist,” Sandy says, mostly to herself, “I wouldn’t be going through this.”

Tripitaka shakes her head, reeling like she’s been struck a blow. She takes Sandy’s hand, grips it so tightly that her fingers ache.

“If she didn’t exist,” she whispers, voice cracking, “neither would you.”

“The way I feel right now,” Sandy says, “I don’t imagine I would mind.”

Tripitaka stops walking. Sandy keeps going for a couple of steps, but then Tripitaka reaches out and pulls her to a stop as well. She stares at her for a long, long moment, piercing her eyes, her heart, then drags her into a fierce, rib-bruising hug.

“Don’t say that,” she rasps. “Don’t ever, _ever_ say that.”

Sandy waits until Tripitaka lets her go, until she is able to draw air into her lungs, before attempting a quiet, shamefaced, “Sorry.”

“Are you really?” It’s an earnest question, thick with pain. “You keep apologising for saying these things, Sandy, but then you keep saying them anyway. Like you _want_ this thing to kill you. Like you want to—”

Stops. Can’t finish the thought, perhaps. Can’t face what it might mean. Sandy understands, and tries to make it as easy for her as she can.

“I want it to stop hurting me,” she says simply. “I want it to stop causing grief and pain to the people I care about. I want it to _end_. And sometimes it feels like the only way that will happen is if I...” She swallows. “If I do too.”

“No.” Trembling, Tripitaka pulls her in again, hugs her even more fiercely than before. “You’re doing so well, Sandy. You’re doing so well and you’re fighting so hard, and you can’t, you _can’t_...” She breaks off, sniffling into the tattered fabric covering Sandy’s chest. “Isn’t that what you do? You and Monkey, you fight so hard. You fight like your lives depend on it, even when they don’t. You fight like the world is burning around you, like survival is the only thing you understand. You fight and you fight, and you don’t...”

Her voice breaks, trailing off into something like a sob. Sandy wills her body not to tremble. “Tripitaka?”

“... _give up_ ,” Tripitaka finishes, as though she never hesitated. “You don’t give up. Not on this, not on yourself. Do you understand? You can give up on me all you like, Sandy, but don’t you ever, _ever_ give up on yourself.”

She pulls away, staring at the ground, chest heaving with emotion.

And Sandy thinks she understands, a little bit. Or maybe quite a lot.

“Oh,” she says.

Tripitaka is still looking at the ground.

“You’re not her,” she whispers, sounding deeply sad. “The younger you. The one inside your head, the one who keeps pushing up through the cracks and trying to make herself real. She’ll be you one day. But you’ll never have to be her, ever again.”

Sandy doesn’t know what to say to that. Doesn’t really know if she should say anything, if there’s anything that can be said. Her head swims, and for just a moment she’s back in the North Water, feeling her legs tighten as they carry her away, willing herself not to glance over her shoulder, not to look back and see and _feel_ —

“Didn’t give up on you,” she whispers.

Tripitaka just sighs. “Sandy.”

“No.” _This_ , she realises. This is what can be said, what needs to be said. “Would never give up on you, Tripitaka. Not ever. But I couldn’t stay. After that, after...” It is so raw, so vivid, for both of them, she doesn’t need to say more. “I couldn’t.”

“I know that. I know—”

“No, I don’t think you do.” She closes her eyes, breathes as deep as her ailing lungs will allow, swallows the scent of warmth and monk’s robes. “I felt so much like her. Not _her_ , the one you just saw. The one that came before. Before Monica, before...” She sighs. “The one whose father left her in the middle of nowhere. Abandoned, unwanted, completely alone. And I saw how you were with those girls. So alive, so happy, all three of you. And you looked so much younger when you were with them. Innocent. Unburdened. All those things I never... _she_ never had. And it hurt. So much I couldn’t bear it.”

“Oh.” It’s more a whimper than a word. “I didn’t... I had no idea.”

“Neither did I.” She looks down at the ground. “Not really.”

Tripitaka makes another whimpering noise, and says, “Sandy,” again, but it is no more helpful than it was before. It shivers down her spine, touches the raw nerves between her vertebrae, makes them feel burned and razed.

“I think you’re wrong,” she says, very quietly. “I don’t think we ever stop being our younger selves. No matter where we end up, no matter _who_ we end up.” She lifts her head, waits for Tripitaka to do the same, to look her in the eye. “When I found out that you weren’t a boy or a monk, that didn’t change you at all. You were still you. _Tripitaka_. Everything you did, the person you’d become... it was all still there. Unchanged.” 

“Your faith, you mean,” Tripitaka says. “Your... devotion.”

“That, and you as well. All of you. Boy or girl, monk or not, I would have still known you a thousand times. But when you were with those girls... when you believed their mother was yours...” She shakes her head, feeling razed down to her bones. “ _Then_ you became someone else.”

Tripitaka’s eyes darken, understanding mixed with regret. She looks like she wants to avert her eyes again, but she doesn’t. Won’t. She is honest and she is present, and she doesn’t waver from the bitter truth.

“I suppose it’s like you said,” she says slowly. “Back then, I mean. I wanted so badly to believe she was my mother. I wanted so, so desperately to have a family... to have _my_ family back...”

“...you became the person you were when you lost them.” Sandy understands, of course. Doesn’t like it, but she does understand. “Exactly.”

Tripitaka doesn’t speak for a while. Understands, perhaps, what Sandy is saying, and maybe realises there’s nothing she can say in return; the truth is painful, but the alternative would be untrue.

Sandy lets the words settle for a while, lets the air grow cleaner between them. Lets Tripitaka know, with her silence, that she doesn’t expect an answer at all, much less a miracle.

Finally, when the silence has stretched out to its natural end, she takes Tripitaka’s hand again and says, very softly, “I think you’re wrong.”

Tripitaka’s smile is wry, self-deprecating. “About what this time?”

“I think...” She wets her lips, feels the weight of it in her chest. “I think I will have to become her again. The other me, I mean, the one I don’t really know at all. I’ll never be myself, truly, until I know what I was. Until I experience it. Until I...” Her breath catches, but she will not flinch. “Until I survive it again, or I don’t.”

Tripitaka’s eyes go wide, face flooding with fresh comprehension.

“Oh,” she breathes. “You’re _afraid_.”

Sandy does not, will not deny it. It is a terrifying thing, and she won’t pretend it’s not.

“Wouldn’t you be?” She swallows thickly, twice. “In Monica’s memories just now, she was a ragged, pitiful thing. It is unpleasant enough, remembering how it felt to be that way. But what is yet to come...” She shudders, her whole body seizing. “Tripitaka, something happened to that girl, something bad enough to shatter her mind and drive her to madness. Whatever it is, it turned her into something worse than pitiful, something feral and primitive and terrifying. It turned her into _me_. Who wouldn’t be afraid of that?”

Tripitaka, eyes shining, does not even hesitate.

“I’m not.” She takes Sandy’s hands, holds on tight, like she can pour her feelings into her through the skin. “Sandy, _you_ are nothing to be afraid of.”

Sandy looks down at her hands, at their hands. Looks at the differences between them, her pale skin swallowed by the darker tones of Tripitaka’s fingers, her knuckles. Looks up, too, into her eyes, her big, dark beautiful eyes, and she sees someone so warm and so full of love that she would blind herself if only it would make the world seem brighter than it was.

And she thinks that someone like that — someone who believes so strongly in the kindness of even the most undeserving people — will never truly understand what it’s like to be born out of madness.

And she is so, so thankful for that.

“I’m glad you feel that way, Tripitaka,” she says, so low it makes her throat hurt. “I hope you still do when this is over.”

And again, Tripitaka doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t blink or flinch, doesn’t even think. She squeezes her hands so tightly, and she looks into her eyes until hers are the only thing Sandy can see.

“I will,” she whispers. “I always will.”

*


	9. Chapter 9

*

With nightfall comes yet another argument about sleep.

In lieu of anywhere else to go, they set up a base in Locke’s abandoned palace. The place has seen better days, gathering dust in the months since they ejected its former occupant, but there is no shortage of space or privacy. That’s rather more than can be said for Monica’s tavern, homely though it is, and in any case they all agree they’ve put her out more than enough already; for all her warm feelings about Tripitaka, her hospitality has its limits, and so does her patience.

And so, the palace.

Monkey is delighted, of course. He makes a show of criticising everything, from the decay to the décor, like he somehow thinks the disapproval counts as vengeance for his imprisonment the last time they were here. He doesn’t seem to care that Locke is safely ensconced in her own dungeon, that she’s not even there to hear his scathing remarks, and no-one bothers to point this out to him; his glee, spiteful though it is, is a rare moment of brightness on a dark, melancholy day.

Pigsy keeps to himself, of course, saying nothing and only rarely looking up from his boots. It can’t be pleasant, being back here, a redeemed would-be hero in the very place that made him a villain, but he doesn’t complain. Doesn’t let the others comfort him either, though; Tripitaka tries once, with a small hand on his big shoulder and a wan smile on her face, but he shakes her off like a leaf and turns away. Ashamed, even now, of his past cruel deeds.

As he should be.

Sandy, for her part, remains sullen and uncommunicative, more and more so as the evening wanes into night; by now, this is expected behaviour. She is resistant to sleep, fighting to the point of belligerence, lashing out like a caged animal at anyone who suggests it, even at Tripitaka. Her younger self is a powerful force inside her head, never growing fully quiet despite her best efforts, and she throws tantrums like thunderstorms.

Understandable, yes. But, even by her own admission, not particularly flattering.

“I know you’re upset,” Tripitaka says gently, “after what happened the last time you—”

“Upset.” The word sticks to the back of her teeth. “Understatement.”

It is a sign of how exhausted they all are, she thinks, that even Tripitaka is getting annoyed with her now; Sandy watches, arms folded, as she takes a moment to compose herself, to dig down deep and find a small measure of patience. Most of the time, she seems to be overflowing with it, patience in abundance, more than Sandy has ever seen in anyone; now she is weary and more frustrated than she’ll ever admit.

“Sandy,” she says, and the name sounds distorted, like it’s struggling to get past her throat. “You can’t just not sleep for the rest of your life.”

“I’m a god,” Sandy retorts, painfully aware of how childish she sounds. “I can go for days without sleep if I choose to. And after what happened the last time, I _do_ choose to.”

Tripitaka crosses her arms too, a perfect petulant mirror. “Well, it’s a good thing you don’t get to decide,” she counters, then turns to face the Shaman with her arms spread wide, imploring. “Can you talk some sense into her?”

He studies them both for a beat or two, quiet and intense and as unsettling as ever. Sandy’s brain itches when their eyes meet, like it can feel him trying to poke at it. She looks away, uncomfortable and irritable in nearly equal measure.

“I can,” the Shaman says at last, humming thoughtfully. “But I won’t.”

Tripitaka looks stung, almost betrayed. Sandy tries to smirk her victory, but it is hard to be smug when her triumph is someone else’s misery.

“I don’t understand,” Tripitaka says, sounding deeply unhappy. “You’re the one who keeps telling her she needs to rest. Surely now, more than ever...”

“Now, more than ever, she must remain in _control_.” He is speaking to Tripitaka, gently authoritative, but his eyes are still fixed on Sandy, like he’s trying to pierce holes and pour out the contents of her head. “Her sleep is restless and frequently disturbed. Rather more significantly, she is afraid of it. What matters now is that her mind is given the freedom and emptiness it needs to process its new memories; if she spends the whole night resisting sleep and struggling against her dreams, that will not happen.”

Sandy allows the tiniest smirk. “Told you.”

Tripitaka glares briefly, then looks back to the Shaman. “So what? We just let her stay up all night, getting more and more exhausted?”

“Of course not.” He takes a brief moment to smother his exasperation, then addresses Sandy directly. “If you are willing, I can induce a meditative state. A sort of trance, if you will, that should allow you to rest without the need to sleep or dream.”

Tripitaka looks uncomfortable. Sandy, meanwhile, feels her spine grow stiff, fighting anger. Thinking back to all those awful nights on the road, screaming and sickness and so much worse, it;s hard not to feel cheated and upset.

“Why haven’t you offered to do this before?” she demands.

“Because it is not an ideal solution.” Said as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “For on, it is exhausting. The trance must be sustained and monitored constantly; it requires a great deal of strain and effort on my part, and would prolong my own rest cycle. Even if you were not already leeching my strength at every turn, the process would be stressful, draining, and decidedly unpleasant.”

Sandy pouts. “Don’t care.”

Tripitaka glares at her like a parent scolding a difficult child. “Sandy!”

She winces, conceding reluctantly that she may have crossed a line.

“Sorry.” Mostly honest. “But it’s true. Too tired to care. And too...”

“Too _afraid_ ,” the Shaman finishes for her; the word is a sigh, uttered with deep frustration but for once very little judgement. “And herein lay the problem. She is afraid of losing control when she sleeps, and thus it happens more frequently. She is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, and what should be an opportunity for rest and recuperation has instead become a source of distress and dread for all of us. It would be inane and pointless to continue insisting on it.” His mouth twitches, irritation touched by surrender. “In any case, I grow weary of being woken in the middle of the night to deal with her lapses. For tonight — and _only_ for tonight — I will accept the strain.”

Sandy’s knees buckle, though she refuses to let it show. “Thank you.”

Tripitaka, meanwhile, doesn’t say anything. She still looks troubled, like her common sense is waging war with her empathy and compassion, the parts of her that have watched Sandy struggle night after night, that have held her and comforted her when she wakes, that have seen the very worst of what sleep does to her. It is hard to argue with those truths when she’s the one who has seen them more intimately than anyone else.

And yet, she would not see someone else suffer for her sake. Even a demon, even the very demon who once tried to throw her to her death. Sandy wishes she was capable of such compassion, such humanity. Perhaps if the nightmares were not her own...

But then, perhaps not.

From the other side of the room, leaning against the wall and clearly waiting for the debate to end so he can go to sleep, Monkey blurts out, “Are you kidding me?”

The Shaman raises a bemused eyebrow, and looks him up and down. “Do you have something to contribute, Monkey King?”

“Plenty.” He flashes that winning grin he wears so well, the one that makes everyone relax a little, often in spite of themselves. “But I’m tired, so I’ll keep it short: do you seriously expect us to believe you’d put yourself through all that ‘stress and exhaustion’ or whatever, just so _she_ can feel rested?”

“I have put myself through far worse since this began, I assure you.” He shrugs one shoulder, wry but wholly unoffended; Sandy wonders if it’s even possible to upset him at this point. “That you are too ignorant in such matters to understand them is no fault of mine.”

Monkey opens and shuts his mouth a few times, seemingly not sure how to react to that. He’s still bristling, of course, but there is a grudging sort of acceptance in him as well. He may not understand the nuances of what Sandy’s going through, but even he has seen the things the Shaman has done, the countless ways, large and small, that he brought her back from the brink of madness during the journey here. She is still alive, still breathing, still holding on to herself — if only just — and even Monkey understands that the Shaman is the reason why.

Taking advantage of the brief waver in his resentment, Sandy says, “He’s been very kind to me, Monkey.”

Monkey rolls his eyes, aggravation flaring up again. “So he’s managed to hold off on killing us all for a few days,” he huffs. “That doesn’t count as ‘kindness’.”

Sandy glances at the Shaman, somewhat affronted on his behalf, but she finds nothing on his face but vague amusement.

“Given the generations of conflict between our two species,” he says to Monkey, “I would beg to differ. But that is, of course, not relevant, and I have no intention of debating the issue with you. None of this is any of your business, Monkey King, and even if it were my actions are not for your approval. What I do here, I do for—”

And stops.

And—

 _Well_.

He would never truly blush, of course. If he’s even capable of such a thing, he’d never allow it in front of a group of gods. But he looks shockingly close to it, and there is no masking the hint of shame that creeps up his neck and makes him avert his eyes.

“He does it for me,” Sandy says quietly. She doesn’t look at either of them, god or demon, and keeps her eyes fixed on her boots. “He eases my pain, or he shares it, or he takes it into himself. In spite of the many differences between our kinds. In spite of the fact that we are enemies and he owes me nothing. Still, he suffers so that I might not have to. ‘Kindness’ is the only word to describe it.”

The Shaman growls. At last, it seems, he really is offended. 

“That is preposterous.”

And perhaps a little flustered.

Tripitaka smiles. The first time in a long, long while, it lights up the room. “What word would you use?”

“ _Practical_.” Too quick, much too sharp. The word is like an arrow fired with precision only to miss its mark entirely. He’s trying too hard to sound effortless, and that gives him away. “Need I remind you that I am only here to satisfy my own curiosity?”

“You do remind us of that,” Sandy says. “Frequently. But curiosity is a small thing. And the suffering you have endured for me is not.”

“I would endure a great deal,” he huffs, “for the acquisition of knowledge. On this subject more than most. Your peculiar little minds are objects of particular interest to me, as you well know, and your case is quite unique. I wish to know what was done to you so that I may use the information to my advantage.”

“Mm.” She wills herself not to smile. “Doesn’t seem especially advantageous for you to suffer for me.”

“As I said.” He’s growling now, almost angry. “It is _practical_. My mind can endure what yours cannot; this is a simple truth. And we will never complete this wretched task if you are in too much pain to stay conscious for more than a moment.”

That stings. Intentionally, most likely; it’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t be, when he knows exactly what she thinks and feels and fears.

“Staying conscious isn’t the problem,” she mumbles, eyes on the floor so she won’t have to look up and see the truth of it scratched all over Pigsy’s face. “It’s when I _lose_ consciousness that bad things happen.”

Tripitaka clears her throat. “Whatever the reason,” she says to the Shaman, with careful diplomacy, “we’re very grateful.”

“Speak for yourself,” Monkey mutters, clinging to his anger like it’s the most precious thing in his world. “I won’t be grateful until this stupid mess is over and we’re all still in one piece.”

So saying, he spins on his heels and skulks away, crossing to the other side of the room where their things are stacked in a corner. The tension in his spine is strange, different from usual, and Sandy watches with a frown as he begins to rummage through their packs.

Tripitaka, being more familiar and less patient than most with Monkey’s wilfulness says his name with a keen edge. Not a threat, at least not really, but a warning not to make things more unpleasant than they already are.

He ignores her, of course, muttering to himself as he throws clothes and trinkets over his shoulder. Sandy can’t quite make out what he’s saying, but she has a feeling she understands just the same.

He emerges a few seconds later with a couple of neatly folded blankets, still sullen and scowling, his expression a reasonable reflection of Sandy’s own feelings right now. He catches her eye from across the room, holds it for a moment as though expressing some wordless communication, then pointedly throws one of them blankets at her head.

Apparently her mind’s brokenness hasn’t affected her reflexes; she catches it easily, and shakes it out with a smile. “Thank you.”

Monkey grunts his acknowledgement. Then, without another word, he stalks back across the room, forces his way into the Shaman’s personal space, and shoves the second blanket into his arms. 

The Shaman stands there for a long, awkward moment, staring down at the neatly-folded bundle like he’s never seen anything like it before in his life.

“You are aware,” he says, very slowly, “that I do not feel the cold?”

Eyes flashing danger, Monkey just shrugs, spins on his heel, and storms out of the room.

*

The Shaman’s trance works remarkably well.

One moment Sandy is lying on the floor, hands resting on her belly to catch the rise and fall of her breathing, pulse racing as the Shaman places his hands at her temples, and the next she’s opening her eyes to the gold-edged glow of early dawn.

The whole night gone, passed in the blink of an eye.

She sits up slowly, bracing for the usual wash of grogginess, but even that does not come. No disorientation, no confusion or nausea or dizziness, no pain in her head or ache in her body. None of the things that have become as expected as breathing, so much a part of the waking process she almost doesn’t think of them any more. Only silence, within and without.

She looks around, takes in the stillness of the morning, the hazy light streaming in through the window, the hushed murmur of breathing close to her chest, Tripitaka still deep in sleep, curled up as always by her side.

It is—

There are no words.

She has not felt like this in a very long time. Not since before the North Water, back when the four of them were a group, together and content and copacetic. Before Tripitaka abandoned them and then abandoned her, before Sandy felt her childhood start to scratch at the walls of her head and her heart, before her words ran away with her and then her legs started running too.

 _Before_. When things were normal. When she was—

Almost.

Normal.

She feels it again now, as close to it as she has ever felt in her life. Quiet, peaceful. Like the world is just that, nothing more: _existence_ , sturdy and solid and real.

Tripitaka, beside her, resting so peacefully. Sandy wonders if this is a new, rare thing for her as well, sleeping through the night without interruption, without waking in the dark to screams or sobs or something worse.

She’s at peace now, warm and tranquil, wrapped around her like there’s not a thing in the world that can hurt them. Sandy watches her for a long, glorious moment, awestruck and dizzied by the sight of her like this, so deeply asleep, so oblivious to the world around her. It has been far too long since she last saw that, since any of them had the chance to sleep so well, to find so much peace in their slumber.

It is difficult to spare a glance for anyone else after that, basking in the sight of Tripitaka so warm and content, as tranquil as the calmest sea. But still, she wills herself to do it, tearing her gaze away with a great force of will, turning with difficulty to find the Shaman a short distance away, also unconscious. His face isn’t quite so peaceful, though; it is lined with fatigue, and he twitches every now and then, as though not fully asleep.

He can’t have been asleep for a very long time, Sandy thinks, and wonders—

“An hour, maybe.”

Startled, she jolts upright, looks around and finds—

Monkey.

Standing by the doorway, leaning against the wall. He looks much like he did last night, if fractionally less edgy. Calmer, certainly. Newly awoken, Sandy guesses, and well-rested. He looks nearly as mellow standing up as Tripitaka does lying down.

Stretching out her muscles, Sandy stands too, and moves to join him. Reluctant to leave Tripitaka’s side, but she doesn’t want to wake her — or the Shaman — by speaking too loudly or too close to them. She has disturbed their rest far too much lately.

“How long have you been awake?” she asks Monkey, settling in beside him.

He shrugs. “Not much longer. Demon idiot kept nodding off, so I told him to leave you alone and get some sleep. Wasn’t about to let him mess you up even more than you already are just because he was too tired to do his thing properly.”

“That was thoughtful of you,” Sandy says softly. “I appreciate you looking out for me.”

He’s not really looking at her, though, and he hasn’t asked how her head feels or whether the trance worked. He’s watching the Shaman with an odd look on his face, like he can measure the weight of his good faith by counting the space between his breaths.

“Someone has to,” he mutters, seeming almost to speak to himself. “I mean, I know you can take care of yourself. Most of the time. But you’re... and he’s...” He exhales, loud and frustrated. “I still don’t trust him.”

Sandy bites down on her tongue, lets the sting smother her smile before it can take shape. Observes, amused but not unkind, “You made sure he covered himself with the blanket.”

“It was _cold_.” He’s scowling again, like maybe she’s struck a nerve. “You wouldn’t know. You were stuck in your head again, in your stupid trance or whatever.”

It doesn’t make her any less inclined to smile. She tilts her head, studies the Shaman’s sleeping, swaddled form.

“If you trust him so little,” she presses, “why should you care if he’s too cold?”

“I don’t care. I just...” He flounders, a little flustered now. “Why do _you_ care? You should just be happy I didn’t let him freeze to death while he was keeping you unconscious.”

Sandy blinks, a little thrown by his vehemence. “You’re awfully defensive for someone who doesn’t care.”

“It’s morning. I don’t talk when it’s morning.”

“Ah, yes. Must have forgotten.” And she turns the sting inwards, chewing her tongue until it becomes a purer, truer sort of pain. “I seem to be doing that a lot lately.”

Monkey flinches, then stiffens. “Don’t do that. That’s not...” He finally tears his gaze away from the Shaman, turning to look at her with such helplessness in his eyes, such grief, that Sandy feels ashamed. “That’s not funny. Not to those of us who have to see it.”

“Not to those of us who have to live it, either,” Sandy says, then softens with a sigh. “But Tripitaka seems to agree with you. Blithe, she calls it. Or ‘detached’.”

“Of course she does.” He rolls his eyes. “I’d say ‘insensitive’. Or, y’know, ‘stupid’.”

“Perhaps.” She grimaces. “I’m still learning, I suppose, what is and isn’t socially acceptable.”

He chuckles, only slightly less ill-humoured. “Nothing you do is socially acceptable.”

And maybe he doesn’t mean it the way it sounds, maybe it really is just the morning roughening his tone, turning his voice to grit in his throat, but it still stings. A reminder, if unintentional, that there are some things she’ll never do, some things she’ll never be. And it hurts, and she wonders — in this, as in so many things now — whether it was her life that made her this way, or that one experience she still can’t touch, the one that left her broken and damaged. Would it have been easier to be normal, like him, if she _were_ normal?

“Like I said,” she mumbles, shaking off the unpleasant thought with a sigh. “Still learning.”

“Yeah.” He’s a little contrite now, but she can tell he still doesn’t quite understand. “Right.”

They stand together for a while, letting the others sleep and watching over them. Monkey is oddly thoughtful, eyes flickering with colour, like he can’t quite decide what he feels, like he doesn’t trust himself much more than he trusts the Shaman. It is a journey for him, acceptance and admitting there might be a little more to their foe than the things he did under Davari’s orders, and he’s not taking it very well. It will take time, assuming it happens at all. But the blanket, at least, is a promising sign.

“He _is_ kind,” Sandy presses, very quietly. “Whatever he may say about it. Whatever his past cruelties. It’s a mark of kindness that he is here with us at all. That he didn’t simply abandon me to my death on those stairs.”

“Hmph.” He’s rolling his eyes again. “He just wanted us to owe him one.”

That may or may not be true; Sandy wouldn’t know. She was in no fit state at the time to know what was happening to her or around her. Couldn’t even hold onto herself, much less anyone or anything else; she knows only that the moment he touched her all the pain disappeared. It’s a hard thing to forget; perhaps that’s why she has as much trouble recalling his cruelty as Monkey does seeing his kindness.

“Maybe,” she concedes carefully. “But since then, he has sacrificed his comfort for mine, again and again.”

She pauses, realising with a glance that she doesn’t need to say more. Monkey is staring at her with a fixed, unhappy expression, and when he speaks it’s with the reluctance of someone whose faith has been thoroughly shaken.

“I know.” His voice is even lower than hers, husky enough to be a whisper. “I watched him, you know. He thought I was asleep, but I didn’t trust him not to mess around with you. So I watched him, to see what he’d do when he thought none of us were there to see it. Didn’t want him taking advantage of you or hurting you, or...”

He trails off, visibly uncomfortable. Whether it’s the thoughts in his head that make him look that way, his fear of the Shaman’s powers and intentions, or the softer truth, Sandy doesn’t know.

Doesn’t ask, either, simply presses, soft and careful: “And?”

“And you were right.” The word is a growl. He doesn’t like when someone else is right, and even less about something like this. “Even when he thought he was alone. I mean, maybe he knew I was awake, he’s sneaky like that. But I don’t think so.” He clenches his teeth. “The way he looked... if he thought for a second that someone was watching, he’d never let himself look so...”

Cuts himself off sighing. Sandy studies the Shaman, motionless under the blanket. “Weakened? Wearied?”

“Both.” Another sigh, another growl. “He wasn’t lying. Keeping you in that state really did exhaust him.”

Sandy doesn’t smile. It would only scare him away if she did, make him defensive and sullen, drive him to deny any feelings at all.

“Is that really so surprising?” she asks.

“Well, yeah.” He’s working his jaw, tense and irritable. “He’s a demon. He’s our _enemy_. Even if he hadn’t done all that awful stuff he did to us, he’d still be untrustworthy. And with all that other stuff as well...” He shakes his head, aggravated. “I just... I don’t get it. Why he’s here, why he’s helping. Any of it.”

Sandy thinks on that. It doesn’t seem so strange to her, but then perhaps that’s to be expected; she and the Shaman have shared so much mind-space, she’s practically breathing in his thoughts at this point. And even if she wasn’t, she’s spent enough time with Tripitaka over the past few days to pick up a little of her boundless optimism.

“He’s alone now,” she says quietly. “No-one left to follow, no orders to obey. No purpose. Adrift. Lost.”

“So?” He quirks a brow. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Sincere, earnest. He truly doesn’t see why such a thing might influence someone’s choices. Not so surprising that he would struggle with the idea, she supposes; he’s always prided himself on never following anyone, on being a free spirit bound only by his desires. He’ll probably never understand what it means to be a follower, to crave approval and instruction, to long for the purpose in heeding someone else’s words.

Sandy is no less solitary, but it is not by choice as it was for him. Her own isolation, all those awful years of it, are stitched into and under her skin, so much a part of her that she’ll never be able to shed it. Maybe that’s why she can so easily understand why a demon, lost and alone for perhaps the first time in his life, might turn away from his nature to help a god, why he might be willing to do anything — even suffer — just to banish that isolation, that purposelessness for another day, another hour, another moment.

Monkey may never understand that sort of desperation. Sandy hopes he doesn’t. Because she has lived it, and it is a dark, desolate thing.

“While he’s with us,” she explains carefully, “he can forget there’s nothing else for him. Forget that his master is gone, forget he’s adrift. While we give him a purpose, he can forget he has none. Forget he’s alone while our voices are here to swallow the silence.” She closes her eyes, feeling the words too deeply, too personally. “Perhaps he feels it’s worth it.”

Monkey studies her for a long, long moment. His expression is blank, inscrutable; if he understands even a small part of it, he doesn’t let it show.

“If you say so,” he mutters at last, eyes darkening again with his usual suspicion. “Just don’t expect me to start trusting him.”

“I don’t,” Sandy says, and she means it. “I understand that it’s hard for you, Monkey. Painful, even. With the Shaman, especially. After what he did to you in the breaking ground, and what he did to Tripitaka at the Jade Mountain. All of it. I know that forgiveness is a difficult thing for you, and he would need so much of it.”

“Yeah.” He’s clenching his jaw so tightly, the word has to struggle to make it out. “A _lot_.”

Sandy nods. “But what he’s doing for me, what he’s done already, just to get me this far...” She looks him in the eye, as best she can. “I think that might be worth forgiving him for. A little bit, if not completely.”

He makes another irritated noise. Frustrated. Maybe with her, maybe with himself, certainly with the Shaman. Either way, the end result is the same.

“Easy for you to say,” he grits out. “You’re the one he’s helping. You’re the one with the most to gain from trusting him, the most to lose from not trusting him. And you...” He turns away, shoulders hunching. “Out of all of us, you’re the one he hurt the least.”

At the breaking ground, perhaps. But afterwards?

“Untrue,” Sandy says, without hesitation. “You nearly lost Tripitaka. We nearly lost _both_ of you.”

He flinches a little at that, no doubt remembering, as she is, the endless moments before his cloud appeared, the wondering, questioning, doubt, the dread in the pit of his stomach—

They both shudder, in unison. Then Monkey shakes his head and shakes off the thought.

“Right.”

And for a moment or two it looks like that’s going to be the end of it. But then his eyes land again on the Shaman’s sleeping form and, seemingly in spite of himself, his eyes lose some of their stubborn darkness.

Sandy bites her lip. “He hurt us all. And now he’s helping. It...” She sighs shakily. “I agree, it’s not easy.”

“It’s really not.” He doesn’t look at her, but the rippling of his shoulders and arms speak volumes. “But... you’re not wrong about him, you know? Hurting himself so you don’t hurt so much. And that’s... it’s not nothing. It’s not... I don’t know, meaningless. And it’s not something you can just forget about after you’ve seen it.”

“No.” She will not jeopardise everything by smiling now. “It’s not.”

“So. He’s honest, at least. And he’s helping. And I guess...” Another sigh, even more frustrated than the last. “I guess that’s more than I’m doing now, huh? I promised to have your back. Instead I’m tending bar while he rewrites your memories and puts your brains back together.”

And now, at last, Sandy does smile. Warm and earnest and real. It feels good to reassure him, to reach out and touch his shoulder, to mirror the forms of quiet, tactile comfort that Tripitaka has taught her so well.

“Tending bar is important,” she says, fondness with a touch of humour. “Don’t think Monica would have agreed to help us if it made her lose business.”

Monkey scowls, but it’s less bitter. “It’s still backwards. That a demon can help more than I can. That he’s doing all this stuff and I can’t do anything. And I’m the one who’s supposed to be—”

And he stops, blushing so hot it’s a wonder his hair doesn’t catch fire.

Sandy lets go of his shoulder, takes a small step back. “...my friend?”

He glares, but only a little. Her voice is small, hopeful, and maybe he senses that the confession weighs as much for her as it does for him.

He doesn’t answer, and she doesn’t push him to. She lets her smile stay, lets her whole self grow warmer with the rising sunlight, lets the silence stretch on and speak for itself.

Finally, when they’re both getting more than a little uncomfortable, Monkey clears his throat and mumbles, “You should go for a walk or something.”

Sandy furrows her brow. Honestly, she’s rather enjoying not doing anything.

“Why?” she asks, trying not to sound as sullen as she suddenly feels. “If it’s cold in here, it’ll be even colder out there. Given the choice, I’d sooner be less cold.”

“Uh huh.” He shoots her a look that says her opinion doesn’t matter. “The demon idiot said you should get some exercise when you woke. Need to stretch your muscles or something? I don’t know, I wasn’t really listening. Is it just me, or is his voice _really_ annoying?”

Sandy chuckles wanly. “Usually when he talks to me, it’s to try and keep me alive. So, um, I can’t say I’ve ever found it particularly annoying, no.” He’s scowling again, so she tries to lessen the blow. “Sorry?”

“Sure you are.” He grunts, then steps away from the door with a sweeping flourish, and flips a small coin purse into her hands. “While you’re stretching your whatevers, you can buy breakfast.”

Sandy looks down at the purse, then up at him, frowning suspiciously. “Did the Shaman really say I should stretch my muscles?”

Monkey clears his throat and gives the door a light whack with his staff.

“You wouldn’t want them waking up to no breakfast, now, would you?”

Try as she might, Sandy can’t argue with that.

*

Monica’s tavern is much busier than she expects it to be at this time of day.

Bustling, in fact. Not with customers, blessedly, but with preparation. The clink of cups and mugs being cleaned behind the bar, the swish of the floors being swept and mopped, pots and pans banging and clanking in the kitchens, and somehow Monica seems to be in all those places at once. Sandy does not envy the unfortunate few she takes on as staff. They can’t seem to get through even half a task without her big voice booming commands or criticism.

Still, she stops her bustling when Sandy steps through the door, looking her up and down with an appraising eye.

Sandy lingers in the doorway, trying to hide the way she’s shivering. Monkey wasn’t wrong about the cold, and she feels it all the way down to her bones. Not for the first time; almost from the moment they walked through the village gates, the cold has been like a solid, tangible thing, a constant pressure on her chest, making it hard to breathe and impossible to get warm. The sensation tugs at her a little, ethereal and phantomic, but she can’t shake it any more than she can shake the pain in her head when she tries to think.

Just one more new sensation to get used to, she supposes, and hopes Monica doesn’t notice.

If she does, she keeps it to herself. She pats the nearest barstool, gesturing for Sandy to take a seat and asks, just a little too casually, “Sleep well?”

Sandy declines the seat, mumbles a vague, evasive, “Mhm.”

“Good.” She looks away, focusing rather too intensely on wiping down the bar. “Holding yourself together all right?”

It’s a question with too many answers, and as rested and comfortable as she feels Sandy still lacks the strength to try and pick them all apart.

“I’m supposed to buy breakfast,” she says instead. “For the others. They’re still sleeping, you see, so I—”

“I see.” She has a knowing gleam in her eye, something so close to familiar that Sandy’s ears start to ring; she closes her eyes, forces the feeling back down, and tries to concentrate on Monica’s voice. “Your idea, was it, then? Coming out here all on your lonesome in your condition?”

Sandy looks at the floor, tries to stifle the throbbing in her head, miserable and annoyed with herself. It was so peaceful just a few moments ago, but being in here makes it hurt all over again, makes her mind feel warped and bent, weakened by something she can’t touch.

“Not an invalid, you know,” she says, though she certainly feels like one. “I can still do things for myself.”

“Never said you couldn’t.” Her eye tells a very different story, though; the familiar twinkle vanishes and in its place is something darker, just as knowing but unsettling now too. “Just keeping an eye out for you, that’s all. Heaven knows, someone has to, what with the company you keep these days.”

Sandy doesn’t know whether she’s talking about the demons or her fellow gods, and she’s not sure she wants to. So, feeling rather uncomfortable, she brandishes Monkey’s purse and lets the clinking coins do the speaking for her.

It is exceptionally effective. Monica tosses down the rag in her hand and shuffles off to the kitchen like her shoes have caught fire. Still watching her a little too closely, though, even as she wraps up some leftovers into separate packages. Sandy’s skin itches under her scrutiny, the same way it does sometimes when the Shaman is looking at her, when it feels like he’s pressing into her mind, into her most private places.

“You know a lot about me,” she blurts out, feeling the words catch inside of her, lurching like her body did when she was drunk.

Monica winces. “More than you know about yourself, I’d wager.”

Sandy keeps her eyes on the kitchen counter, on the floor, on the walls. Anything that’s not Monica’s piercing eye. Doesn’t make it any easier to try and speak, but at least that horrible feeling bleeds out of her skin.

“The thing that happened to me,” she says in a slow, rasping whisper. “The thing that made me like this... is it very awful?”

Monica stiffens a little, but her expression doesn’t change at all. Years of practice, Sandy supposes, in dealing with unpleasant patrons; on the surface, she seems wholly unaffected, and it’s only when Sandy sees the tension in her shoulders that she realises it’s all an illusion.

“You’ll see for yourself soon enough,” she says, voice tight. “You really want me to spoil the ending?”

Sandy does want that. A lot. She wants to know everything, wants to be prepared, wants some idea of what sort of nightmares she’ll be forced to relive. Wants a lot of things. But—

“That would be bad.” She can’t keep the misery, the defeat out of her voice. “He wants the memories untainted, unvoiced. I don’t really understand it very well, but I listen to what he says because it hurts when I don’t.” She feels so small, talking to Monica like this, childish and weak in a way she doesn’t with the others. Perhaps it’s the younger part of her still pushing, or perhaps it’s just muscle memory, the only way she knows how to exist in this place she barely remembers. “Don’t want details. I mean, I do, but I can’t. I just want to know how much pain I should prepare for. If I should be frightened.”

She forces herself to look Monica in the eye, to open herself up as best she can and let her — let _someone_ — see her as she truly is. Not tired and trying too hard to be strong, the way she is with Tripitaka. Not determined like she tries to be for Monkey and the others Just _her_ , the broken part of her that feels young and small and helpless, careening towards the edge of a very steep, very high cliff.

Monica looks back at her, shadows brewing behind her lone dark eye. She looks so much like Sandy feels, like maybe she’s lost too, like maybe she feels small and scared as well, in her own worldly way.

Unlikely, perhaps. But there it is, just the same, and when she speaks the words are so heavy, so raw with grief and pain, that they sound almost like a prayer.

“Oh, Sandy girl,” she whispers. “It’s a painful, frightening world for the likes of us. You know that already, without any of this to hammer the bloody point home.”

“I do,” Sandy says quietly. She thinks of the life she does remember, the dark and the dank of the sewers, the twisted places that took her in and swallowed her whole. “I do know that, of course. But I’m—”

“Don’t be,” Monica says quickly. “Nothing is worth being scared of if it keeps you alive.” She closes the space between them, the food all but forgotten, and cups Sandy’s face with such tenderness that she trembles. “You _are_ alive, my girl, and thriving better than I’ve ever seen you. Don’t be afraid of what got you there, whatever twisted turns it takes.”

“It broke my mind,” Sandy whispers. “Ripped it up and tore it apart it until there was almost nothing left. Made me feral. Made me into _me_.” She still can’t say aloud, how utterly terrifying that is. Monica, like Tripitaka, knows so little of what it truly means, of how it feels to be so wild. “I don’t know if I can go through that pain again.”

“Life is pain,” Monica says, with a little wildness of her own. She brings her free hand up as though by instinct to touch her eyepiece, fondness and grief washing through her in almost equal measure. “We hurt, but we survive. Even if we lose whole parts of ourselves, parts we’ll never get back. Even if it’s a kind of pain that never really heals. Even if it’s just to prove to the bastards that we _can_. We survive, and we thrive.” Her fingertips brush Sandy’s hairline, coming to rest against her temple. She looks so fond, so soft, like she’s reexperiencing some long-buried moment of tenderness and grief. “It’s what we do.”

Sandy bites her lip. Pulls away, breaking the contact, because the feeling it sparks inside her is so intense she doesn’t trust herself to keep it inside. She feels her younger self pulling at her again — not at her head this time, but her heart — and it makes her want to bury herself in Monica’s arms and hide there until all the pain and fear and suffering just disappears.

“I feel...”

But, of course, there are no words to describe all the things she feels. And even if there were, where would she even begin?

Monica exhales slowly; for a moment she looks unfathomably old.

“You and me both, Sandy girl,” she whispers. “You and me both.”

*

Weighed down with breakfast foods, Sandy stops by Locke’s prison.

She hasn’t seen Pigsy since last night. He slipped out at some point in the night, either before or after Sandy went into her trance, and though she doesn’t know for sure it doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out where he would have disappeared to. He’s not exactly a subtle person, and she doubts he was trying to be, but she still can’t help herself: his continued reticence worries her.

Predictable as ever, she finds him guarding his ex-girlfriend in her cell. Even more predictable, he’s out cold, asleep at his post and dead to the world.

Locke, wide awake and seemingly content in her confinement, greets Sandy with a friendly wave.

“Poor bugger held out as long as he could,” she comments. “Never was one for making it through the night, though.”

She bursts out laughing, like that’s something unspeakably amusing, and only cackles harder when Sandy frowns and says, “You probably wore him out.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she says with a pointed leer. Then, when it becomes obvious that Sandy doesn’t understand her humour, she sighs and sobers. “You’re looking better this morning. Still paler than bloody death, mind, but I suppose we can’t hope for miracles. Decent night’s sleep?”

Sandy opens her mouth to clarify, to explain the Shaman’s trance and its effects. But Locke’s eyes are already glazing over with boredom before she even starts, so she gives up and simply says, “Something like that, yes.”

“Glad to hear it.” To Sandy’s surprise, she actually sounds like she means it. “Had a rough ol’ time of it on the road, you did. About time you got a bit of rest behind you.” Her smile isn’t exactly warm, but it’s not mocking either. She seems conversational, almost cheerful. “So. What brings you to my humble abode?”

She waves a hand, taking in the cell with unabashed self-satisfaction. Like she chose these accommodations for herself, like she’s not here against her will. Like she’s not a—

The pain in Sandy’s head spikes for a moment, blinding her, then vanishes as if it were never there. It steals her breath, the force and suddenness of it, and leaves her feeling shaky and a bit sick. But she is in the presence of an enemy she doesn’t trust, and she will not let the discomfort show. Will not let Locke, of all people, see any more of her weakness than she already has.

“Breakfast.” She places one of Monica’s packages at Pigsy’s feet, ready for when he wakes, then crosses gingerly to the cell and slides a second through the bars. “Wouldn’t want you to go hungry. You may be terrible, but starvation is worse.”

She says it with the confidence that comes with experience, and perhaps Locke picks up on that because she frowns and swallows back whatever quip she seemed about to make. Instead she just shrugs, unwrapping her breakfast — meagre, yes, but still far more than Monkey would have allowed if he were here instead — and tucking in with her usual breezy indifference.

“Too much of a bleeding heart, you are.” Unlike her former lover, Locke does not speak with her mouth full. Sandy refuses to think of it as an improvement. “You’d be better off turning your back on this place and throwing away the key, not feeding me up and whiling away the hours with cheery chit-chat.” She sets aside a small portion of her breakfast, no doubt saving it for later, and chuckles. “Not that I’m complaining, mind.”

Sandy considers that. Perhaps it’s true, perhaps she is a bleeding heart, too inclined to look for hope in places where there is none. Perhaps she’s spent too much time with Tripitaka, absorbing all that human optimism until it covers and corrupts the truth. Perhaps—

Perhaps.

But after talking to Monica, bracing herself for a pain so inevitable she can feel it in her bones and blood, she finds she has to believe in something good somewhere. Has to believe there is hope for something, somewhere to end in a way that doesn't hurt. Locke isn’t the safest person to pin her faith on — Sandy knows all too well what the others would say about this, and they wouldn’t be wrong — but they have talked together, quiet conversations in those middle-of-the-night braiding sessions, and Sandy has seen the emotions hiding under all of those demonic instincts.

She doesn’t expect miracles. Doesn’t expect anything at all. But she has to believe in something, and this...

This is _something_.

A flicker of hope, when her world is so terribly dark.

“You treated the people of this town horribly,” she says, slow and very careful. “To say nothing of what you did to the gods you captured. But then, so did he.” She tilts her head at Pigsy, lowers her voice so as not to disturb and wake him. “And look at him now. Growing and learning, becoming something more than he was. I’ve seen him show selflessness, generosity, patience...” She can’t help herself; thinking of it, she smiles. “If he can make amends for his past deeds, others can too.”

“Others, eh?” Locke snorts, more amused than affected. “Even a washed-up old demon like me?”

“Yes.” Said without hesitation, without thought. Has to be that way; if she lets herself think about it she’ll realise how foolish it is. “You treated me well while we were travelling. I was weakened, crippled, often dreadfully sick. You could have overpowered me at any time, if you chose. Could have tried, at least. But you never did.”

“Course not. Why would I try something as stupid as that with a chain around my neck? Your Monkey King would’ve strung me up quick as you like if I’d even entertained the thought.” Another snort, this one much colder. “I know what my life is worth to you lot. Try anything funny and you’re as good as dead. But play _nice_...” Her eyes sharpen, darken. She smiles, but it’s no less cold. “Play nice, and you get ahead.”

Sandy shakes her head. “Didn’t help you to avoid your fate. You still ended up in here. Locked up, maybe never to see daylight again.”

“True enough. But you’re here too, now, aren’t you? Feeding me up, talking to me like we’re old friends instead of old enemies. Give it another few minutes, and you’ll start pitching the bloody redemption story.”

“You do have the potential for it,” Sandy points out, acutely aware of the fact that she’s just proving Locke’s point to the letter. “I saw it in you when we were travelling. There’s warmth under all that greed and ego. Hidden, half-starved, but there. You showed it to me, intentionally or otherwise, all those times we talked.” And she takes a deep breath and lets her own eyes grow hard too. “In any case, it’s worth considering in light of your current predicament. Redemption is a better fate than death, yes?”

Locke laughs, loud and long enough that Sandy glances at Pigsy, worried that the noise will rouse him from his sleep. It doesn’t, but it still takes a moment for her pulse to slow again.

“Come on, now,” Locke says, when she’s finished laughing long enough to put a sentence together. “You know me better than that. All these years we’ve been tussling, and when have I ever let a little thing like defeat stop me? You lot already had me locked up once, and look what happened.”

“Different this time,” Sandy says.

Locke shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. Suppose time will tell for us all, eh?”

“Perhaps.” She sighs. “Still, I think you should consider it.”

“Please. You know it’d never take.” She sounds utterly convinced, so sure of her own path. It’s almost a little sad. “I got more lives than a bleeding cat, me. I’ll be fine, just you wait and see.”

That’s a fair point. Locke had many talents as a dictator, not least of all her tenacity. Pigsy may have been the only god she managed to seduce onto her side — at least, to anyone’s knowledge — but Sandy fought her soldiers often enough to know how many humans counted among their numbers, and how many called themselves loyal. Even among the people she oppressed and terrorised and stole from, she cultivated obedience.

It is telling enough that she held Palawa as long as she did, that the people didn’t rise up until they had a trio of gods on their side; between her charisma and her preternatural gift for wriggling out of even the most dire situations, Locke is as close to truly indestructible as any demon Sandy has ever clashed with. Her arrogance, even in chains, the unquestioning certainty that her survival is assured... it is not without foundation.

Still, Sandy finds that she is optimistic. For all that life has tried to harden her, for all that it has very nearly succeeded, still somehow she has that.

Tripitaka’s influence. Of that, she has no doubt.

“Don’t you want something better?” she asks, quiet and hopeful.

And Locke, once again, only laughs.

“Better than what?” she counters, with sincerity. “I like stuff. And I like power. I like having people do what I tell them to do when I tell them to do it. You don’t get much better than that, my sweet. All this ‘sharing and equality’ rubbish you gods and your human keep going on about, it’s bloody backwards. Why would I settle for a little piece of anything when I can just grab the whole lot and keep it all for myself? Makes no sense.”

Sandy doesn’t really know how to respond to that. It’s such a strange way of seeing the world, so unlike everything she’s ever thought or felt — even in her worst days, even when she had nothing — that she sort of has to rearrange her mind to try and understand it. She’s never had much in the way of material possessions, and far less in the way of power; she can’t imagine valuing such things so highly that the rest of the world becomes unimportant.

“What about friendship?” she asks, after a long moment. “Family? Love?” She glances back at Pigsy, feels the air shift as Locke does the same. “He still cares for you.”

“Then he’s a damned fool.” The strained bitterness in her voice belies her own feelings, though, and so does the darkness in her eyes. “He’s the one who walked out on me, love. Should know better than to let his precious feelings get in the way of—”

_Something better._

But she can’t seem to bring herself to say it.

Sandy can’t muster any real compassion for a power-hungry tyrant, but it’s hard not to ache just a little for Pigsy’s sake.

“Wouldn’t you want him to forgive you?” she asks, as softly as she can. Then, with rather more significance, “Wouldn’t you want to give him a reason to?”

Locke tears her gaze away from her former lover, and stares at Sandy instead. She’s angry, or trying to be, but it’s wavering and toothless, like there’s something softer underneath that she doesn’t want her to see. Sandy thinks of their late-night conversations, of Locke’s hands in her hair, deceptively gentle, pulling it back and keeping it out of the way, protection from the moments when her body betrayed her; she thinks of the way she would fill those awkward moments with talking, the way she always said just a little bit more than she meant to.

“Funny thing about forgiveness,” she's saying now, and the anger doesn’t reach her voice any more than it really reaches her eyes. “It never lasts as long as you’d like.”

“It can,” Sandy says, with a wealth of faith that she has cultivated carefully in her time with Tripitaka. “If you’re willing to put in the work.”

Locke grunts her disagreement. “Bloody optimist, you are. Even now.” Her expression shifts, features shadowed under the half-light of the cell; the sudden intensity is unnerving, even a little frightening. In spite of herself, in spite of their present situation, Sandy takes a small, nervous step back. “You think everything’s so damn easy. Just wave a hand, say ‘oops, sorry, didn’t mean it’, and you can wash it all away? The worst of the worst, all gone—” She snaps her fingers. “—just like that?”

Sandy swallows to stop her voice from quavering. “Why not?”

“Because that’s not how it works, you daft little idealist.” She sighs, more than a little frustrated, and Sandy wonders if this isn’t her first time wrestling with this. “So, that little episode you had the other night? Your hands, his face, a whole mess of blood and misery?”

“What of it?” Sandy asks, tensing.

Locke smirks just a little, seeming to relish her discomfort. “You really think my boy would’ve been so quick to forgive if you’d done him a real mischief? Left a scar? Clawed out his eye?”

Sandy’s stomach gives a violent, dangerous lurch; she’s suddenly glad she hasn’t eaten yet.

“Wouldn’t,” she manages weakly. “Would never. Tripitaka says—”

“You set too much stock by what your precious monk says,” Locke snaps, increasingly impatient. “Just think about it, will you?”

Sandy doesn’t think about it. Doesn’t want to think about it. Just thinking about thinking about it makes her feel sick to her stomach.

“No,” she hears herself say. Distant, distorted. Her head is starting to spin again, ears ringing in the way that usually heralds danger. Suddenly she feels very far away from Tripitaka, and desperate to get back to her. “No, it doesn’t matter. Because it didn’t happen. Because it would never happen. Never. Would never hurt someone like that. Would never hurt a _friend_. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, I...”

She trails off, closing her eyes and trying with every ounce of strength she has to close her mind as well, to block out the tiny place inside of her that still wonders _what if_. 

She remembers nothing of what she did that night, has only Tripitaka’s tremulous promises that she did no real harm, only Pigsy’s shaky smiles to convince her that he wasn’t hurt, that he didn’t blame her for whatever violence her broken mind committed on her behalf. Only the distant hope that they’re speaking the truth, not trying to protect her from it.

She looks up, vision blurring, and finds Locke staring at her with an odd expression. Sorrow, or at least it looks very much like it.

“Everyone’s got their breaking point,” Locke says softly. It sounds soft and strange, like compassion twisted on a tongue not made for it. “However well you think you know someone, there’s always something you just can’t forgive.” And she steps forward, gripping the bars of the cell like a gaoler looking in. “Best not forget that, my sweet.”

Sandy feels shaken and a little scared, though she can’t say why. Her head feels like it’s rebelling against her, and she takes another step back, and then another, stumbling just a little, feeling—

“That’s enough.”

She jolts. Spins on her heels, arms half-raised to defend herself, only to realise a split-second too late that it’s only Pigsy, awake and scowling at them.

He’s angry. Really angry, much more than he has any reason to be, and Sandy ducks her head, overwhelmed by the old, old instinct to hide. Pigsy’s anger is a rare and terrible thing; he’s perhaps the most easy-going person — man or god or demon — she’s ever met, so when his temper frays and snaps it’s like a thunderbolt striking an old, dry tree: the fire spreads and spreads and consumes everything in its path.

She swallows her reflexes, the irrational fear, the self-preservation. Then, in a futile feint at calming him with the one thing that always does:

“I brought breakfast.”

He doesn’t even look at her.

Eyes on Locke, he shoulders his way past Sandy like he’s barely even aware of her presence, crowding as much of the space around the cell as he can, pressing against the bars until Locke grows uneasy and slinks back to her corner. Apparently, even she is smart enough to give an angry Pigsy a very wide berth.

“Are you _trying_ to push your execution date forward?” he asks her, rough and furious. “Because if you keep this up...”

“Just chatting, love. Harmless and friendly.” She flashes him a big smile, winsome if rather ineffectual. “Nothing to worry your pretty little head about.”

“There’s never anything ‘harmless’ when you’re the one chatting.”

Still reeling a little, Sandy takes a deep, steadying breath. Her instincts are yelling at her to run away, to disappear into the shadows and run, run, _run_ until she’s safely back in Tripitaka’s arms; even if she weren’t irrationally frightened, she doesn’t want to make this moment more awkward than it already is. But she feels responsible, in a way, for letting the conversation go on as long as it did; she is as much to blame as Locke for trying to twist things into what she wanted, and she shouldn’t let her take the blame alone.

“Pigsy,” she squeaks, barely loud enough to be heard. “Pigsy, she’s right. It was harmless.”

“That’s what she wants you to think,” he mutters, still not looking at her. “She does that. Gets under your skin, tricks you into buying whatever nonsense she’s peddling. But she’s a snake. Don’t show her your back.”

Locke chuckles at the analogy. She hisses playfully, first at him and then at Sandy, then sobers and shakes her head.

“He’s right, sweetness. You don’t want to trust me as far as you can throw me. Best run along now, and keep your distance from now on.” Her expression flickers. Sandy wonders if Pigsy notices it too; his remains as hard as ever. “S’not like you’d ever stand a chance of turning me anyway, so why not save your strength for where it’s needed, eh?”

Said softer, lower, like maybe she doesn’t want Pigsy to hear that part. _Don’t you worry about me,_ she seems to be saying, in the only way she really knows how. _Not when you’re the one who’s splitting at the seams_.

So Sandy wants to believe. Has to believe. With the way her mind and body are twisting themselves up into violence and confusion and pain, it’s the only small comfort she has, to hope that kindness might yet exist in unlikely places.

She turns to Pigsy, mouth half-open to placate him a little, but freezes before she even gets a word out. Her vision blurs, every nerve in her body reeling as she looks him in the eye for the first time.

The anger fades a little from his eyes when he looks at her, but it takes a couple of seconds to die, and in that moment Sandy is utterly blind, unable to see anything but the heat and the healing scratches where her scared, shattered mind left its mark.

She flinches, staggering backwards, and whatever she was going to say vanishes into the ether, swallowed by the sight of those scratches, the blood she shed, the sensory overload of skin underneath her fingernails, of—

Her mind goes blank, body shaking, and all she can think is, _I did that, it was me, I hurt you, I hurt, I—_

“Hey,” he says, softening. “You know it’s not you I’m mad at, right?”

“I...” Her voice catches. He reaches out to steady her, but that only makes it worse; the ringing in her ears becomes louder, almost overwhelming, and she turns away in a flight of sudden panicked desperation. “Um, no. Yes. I mean... you’re right. I should go. I should...”

And she breaks out of his grip like it’s the most horrifying thing she’s ever known.

Pigsy frowns at his hand, like he’s not sure it really belongs to him. “Too rough?”

“No.” She swallows heavily, still inching away. “Not you, I mean. Just...” Her back hits the door with a painful, jarring crack. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I...”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” He sounds baffled, like he truly doesn’t remember what happened, what she did. She wishes she could put things out of her mind as easily as he seems to; she wasn’t even aware of what she was doing but she still feels the deed over her head like a cloud about to burst. “It’s good. We’re all good.”

From the other side of the bars, Locke merrily points out, “ _I’m_ not.” She grins, looking suddenly as wild and feral as Sandy feels on her worst days. “Bad to the bone, I am. Don’t ever forget it.”

“Wasn’t talking to you,” Pigsy snaps.

“Please. Like that’s ever stopped me.”

He glares, then promptly turns his back on her. Smart enough not to reach for Sandy again, but his hand flexes a little at his side, like it’s itching for something to touch, a distraction from the fist it so clearly wants to make.

“Go on, then,” he says gently, seeming to sense that she’s on the brink of something awful, that she will fall into pieces if she stays here. “Get that food back to the others.”

Sandy nods. A moment ago, she was aching to stay, to keep trying to break through to Locke, desperate to find the heart hiding somewhere behind all that finery. Now, all of a sudden, it’s not the demon she wants to run away from, but the god. Her friend.

She closes her eyes, feeling ashamed and awkward and awful, and fumbles for the door. “See you at the tavern later?”

“Sure thing.” He’s trying a little too hard to be casual, though; the anger is still flickering at the edges of his voice, but it’s mostly just worry now. “Starting to get a knack for this bartending business.”

Sandy tries to smile. Fails, but tries.

“Maybe you could teach Monkey,” she manages. “He doesn’t seem to like it very much.”

“Is there anything Monkey _does_ like?” he counters, smiling dryly.

Sandy thinks of warm blankets in a cold room, of sunlight touching Monkey’s face, softening it as he watches his former enemy sleeping. She thinks of the way he touches her shoulder, the way he sparred with her on the road, of all the little ways he shows he cares even as he refuses to ever, ever say the words.

“No,” she says, and this time she does smile. “I don’t think there is.”

*

By the time she gets back to the bedroom, Tripitaka and the Shaman are both awake.

The latter is standing in a corner with Monkey, speaking with him a low voice. They seem to be discussing meditation, or something like it, though she can’t make out more than a few words. Tripitaka, on the other side of the room, is still yawning and stretching; clearly, she’s not been awake for very long.

She perks up a little when she sees Sandy, though not by much, and when she speaks it’s with the groggy mumble of someone who’s still limping back to consciousness.

“Where’ve you been?” she asks, voice still thick with sleep. “I was worried.”

“Breakfast,” Sandy explains, holding up what’s left of it. “Monkey said that the Shaman said that I should stretch my muscles.”

“Did he, now?” the Shaman asks. He’s considerably more awake than Tripitaka, though he still looks drained. He shoots Monkey a cynical, amused, look, and rolls his eyes. “An interesting interpretation of my actual instructions.”

Monkey shrugs, trying in vain to smother a smirk. “Stretch them, rest them... is there _really_ a difference?”

It is difficult to be annoyed at him when he’s looking so cheerful; such a thing is so rare, it seems, she doesn’t want to ruin what meagre moments of joy can still be found. So, rather than voicing her opinion, she settles for throwing his breakfast package at his head and taking some spiteful satisfaction in his pained grunt. It’s not quite revenge, but it is as much as she cares to offer, and there is some petty pleasure to be gleaned from stooping to his level.

She settles down beside Tripitaka while they eat, and tries not to let any of them see how deeply relieved she feels to be back by her side. Hates herself for feeling that way, for needing it, but she does, and the comfort she draws simply from being here is immeasurable. To be close again, just a breath away from contact if she needs it, if the ringing in her ears starts up again, to be able to reach out and find her hand, her eyes, if her head starts to—

“Hey.”

Her voice is a beautiful shock, like dunking her whole body into a bucket of cool, fresh water. Letting her eyes slide shut, Sandy breathes it in, absorbs the sound like a creature with bubbles in her blood.

“Tripitaka.”

“Yeah.” A hand on her thigh, fingertips drumming a rhythm through her clothes. “Are you okay?”

Sandy longs for the days when that was a simple question with a simple answer.

“I went to the prison,” she says. It feels heavier than it should, like a confession. “Thought Pigsy might want food. And maybe Locke too.”

“Okay.” Tripitaka sounds confused, like she doesn’t understand why Sandy is sharing this. Sandy opens her eyes, finds her frowning. “Did something happen there?”

“No. I don’t know. Maybe?”

Unhelpful, perhaps, but Tripitaka shows her usual boundless patience. “Go on...”

“He was angry.” Her tongue feels like it’s stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she doesn’t know why. Can’t explain why this weighs so much, why it feels so powerful. “At Locke, not at me. He was asleep, so we talked some until he woke up. He didn’t like that. Got angry with her, upset with me. Said she was getting under my skin. Said she’s a snake and I shouldn’t talk to her.”

“She _is_ a snake,” Monkey chimes in. He’s watching them from the other side of the room, casually listening in, like he thinks every conversation should include him as a matter of course. “He’s right about that. And he’s right that you shouldn’t be talking to her. That’s just stupid. Why would you even—”

“Doesn’t matter why,” Sandy says, flushing a little. “Matters that he got angry.”

Tripitaka pats her thigh. “He’s just looking out for you,” she says. “That’s all.”

Sandy knows that, of course. Pigsy always feels a personal responsibility whenever Locke is involved, and especially when it comes to his new friends; none of them have forgotten that it was his deception that got them captured in the first place, that their lives depended on his change of heart. No-one knows better than he does how much evil he did before, how much he still has to atone for, and he seems to have taken it upon himself to take that to extremes; no doubt having Locke among them, even in chains, has brought him back in touch with some deeply unpleasant parts of himself, parts he desperately wished would stay buried.

That’s not what bothers her, though. She understands his over-protectiveness, his fury when it comes to keeping his ex-lover away from the people he cares about. In a way, she’s grateful that he cares so much, though they both know the excess is unnecessary.

What does bother her is the way he looked at them. At Locke, burning with rage and hurt and the will to do her harm, when for perhaps the first time in her cruel life she’d done nothing but talk. And then, a moment later, at Sandy, still burning but suddenly different, ablaze with such protectiveness, so sure that he needed to do right by her, to keep her safe, to keep her from harm.

And _that_ —

“Should have been the other way around.” 

Tripitaka frowns. “What should have?”

Sandy sighs. “He should’ve been angry at me,” she explains. “Not her. She’s done terrible things, of course, but this time all she did was talk. She’s locked up, harmless. Couldn’t hurt me, couldn’t hurt him, couldn’t hurt anyone. But she’s the one he’s angry at when I’m the one who... who...”

Trails off, needing a moment. Has to brace herself to say the word, to remember, to make it true by saying it.

Tripitaka, still touching her, whispers, “Oh.”

Sandy bows her head. Can’t look at her if she wants any hope of finishing. 

“I hurt him,” she whispers. “Not her. _Me_. He’s still got scratches on his face from what I did to him, and it could’ve...” Swallows hard, recalling Locke’s words, her warnings. “But he... the way he looked at us, like she was the one who made him bleed and I was the one who needed protecting. It was wrong. Backwards.”

She shakes her head, shaking a little all through. Takes a long moment to find the courage to look up, to look Tripitaka in the eye, to seek out understanding, empathy.

None. She looks and looks, but all she sees is pain. Grief, heartbreak. It’s not what she wants, what she craves. It makes her feel vulnerable and upset, makes her feel like something so much smaller than she is, like the little girl in her head is suddenly bigger than the rest of her, like maybe that’s all Tripitaka is truly seeing when she looks at her. It makes her wish she could be angry too.

“Sandy.” Her name is a soft, sorrowful thing, and she hates it. “It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t yourself.”

Sandy thinks, again, of Locke. Realises, hating herself a little more, that she really has crawled under her skin, that she can’t stop thinking about what she said, can’t stop wondering how different — how awful — things might have been.

“Could’ve done much worse,” she whispers. “Could’ve torn up his face, left him scarred. Could’ve torn out his eye, left him blind. Could’ve left him permanently damaged, one way or the other.” Feeling queasy, she pushes aside the remains of her breakfast. “What then?”

Tripitaka chuckles. Not really amused, just trying to deflect. Like she thinks she cast the point aside by pretending it’s not possible. Like her dark, expressive eyes don’t always give away her truest feelings.

Still, predictable as ever, she says, “That would never happen.”

“You don’t know that.”

A low, annoyed sound. “Fine. It _could_ never happen.” And she takes her hand back. “Even if you’d tried. You’re strong, Sandy, but you’re not _that_ strong.”

Sandy shakes her head. A memory tickles at the back of her mind, maybe a handful of different memories. Ones that are her own, real and tangible, ones she knows are true. Herself, scared and desperate and hungry, all but drowned by the cold and the dark, alone and broken, more beast than human, more demon than god. Sharp claws, sharp teeth, sharp blades, the only light in the dark glinting off their keen edges. So much pain, so much hurt, so much _fear_. If someone got close back then, she’d do far worse than scratch their faces.

“Fear and pain can make you terribly strong,” she whispers, feeling haunted. “Can make you dangerous, desperate. Deadly.”

Tripitaka sighs. Sets aside her own breakfast with obvious reluctance, and leans back in to give Sandy her full attention. Eyes still dark with that sad sort of pain, the quiet heartbreak that burns as much as it soothes. Sandy wants to drown in her eyes, but at the same time she wants to run as far and hide, as far away from them as she can get.

“Sandy,” Tripitaka says. “This is _her_ talking. The younger you, the one that was told she was a monster, the one that didn’t understand enough to know it wasn’t true. You’re not dangerous just because somebody once said you were.”

“No,” Sandy says. “I’m dangerous because I _am_.”

“No, you’re _not_.”

Monkey, still listening like he’s a part of the conversation, clears his throat with his usual authority. “Uh, yeah, actually, she is.”

Tripitaka glares. “Not helping, Monkey.”

“Right. And how is lying more helpful?”

“I’m not lying.” She looks a little petulant now, annoyed at having no-one on her side. “She’s not a monster and she’s not a demon. She’s not—”

“Never said she was either of those things,” Monkey shoots back. “But she _is_ dangerous.”

He’s grinning as he says it, like it’s not worrying at all. There’s no reason for that to make her feel better, but somehow it does.

Doesn’t have the same effect on Tripitaka, though. Angry now, she growls, “Monkey...”

“What?” He looks from her to Sandy and back again. “You both know it’s true. She could crush you with her legs if she wanted to. She could stab you through the heart and disappear before you even knew she was there. She could—”

“Yes,” Sandy says weakly, cutting him off before he can make her recall too much. “Yes. I could do those things. Have done them, in fact. More than once.”

Tripitaka looks a little sick. Monkey, of course, only looks smug, thrilled as he so often is to be proved right.

“Of course you have.” He spreads his arms. “Because you’re a god. You’re fast and you’re strong and you’re real— uh, kind of talented. And yeah, if you lost control you could do some serious damage to anyone in your path.”

“Monkey!” Tripitaka sounds strangled. “That’s enough.”

It is not often that he ignores Tripitaka — like Sandy, he is bound to her word, even when she doesn’t use the crown sutra to silence him — but he ignores her now. He crosses the room, eyes on fire, and hauls Sandy up to her feet as though she weighs nothing at all. Locks eyes with her, face to face, still smirking, like he’s just beaten her in a fight she never realised she was a part of.

“You _could_ ,” he says again, harder now. “But you _won’t_. You know why?”

Sandy squirms a little in his grip; he tightens it. “Why?”

“Because I’m dangerous too.”

And he bares his teeth and shoves her in the chest, hard enough to provoke but not enough to hurt. And it is reflex that makes Sandy want to shove him back, reflex like the day he started swinging his weapon to help quiet her mind, like the way her reflexes always light up when he speaks in the soundless physical language that is hers as well.

She doesn’t push back, though. Not this time. Because that’s what he wants her to do.

So she plants her feet, holds his gaze and says, with quiet understanding, “Yes, you are.”

He nods. Says all she needs to hear with his body — the way he pushes her, the way he holds her, the way he forces himself into her personal space — but still he digs down to find the words too.

“Right. And so is Pigsy. Hard as he tries to pretend he couldn’t hurt a fly, we both know he could squash you flat if he wanted. Or set you on fire.” He chuckles to himself, as though picturing that, then grows serious again. “Do you really think he’d let you do something like that to him? I mean, really?”

Sandy feels heat flood her face. Ashamed, yes, but also suddenly, inexplicably angry.

“Wouldn’t know,” she mumbles bitterly. “I don’t _remember_.”

And then she does shove him.

Not as hard as she could, but shot through with all her pent-up frustration and helplessness, with all the pieces of her that the Shaman has told her to suppress, the dark thoughts and feelings, the crushing weight of simultaneously wanting and not wanting to understand, of being more terrified of what lurks inside her than all the horrible things in the world outside. Shoves him like she can banish those feelings by banishing him, like she can force them all out of her space, out of her head out of _her_ —

And with the impossible speed of a lightning strike, he catches her by the wrists, pulls her in, and holds her fast.

“So remember _this_ ,” he says, not missing a beat. “Out there, on your own, yeah, you’re dangerous. Deadly. But here, you’re just one of us.” He grins, and his sharp teeth fill her field of vision. “And no offence, but I’m worth three of you all on my own.”

So saying, and satisfied that he’s made his point, he lets her go.

Sandy rubs her wrists, not really sore in spite of his rough treatment, and mutters, “A fair point.”

“I can pin you to the ground with one hand,” he goes on. Not bragging, she can tell, but offering comfort, letting her know that she is safe with him, that she’s protected from her darkest fears, from herself. “I don’t care how fast you are, or how powerful, or how strong you get when you’re scared or not in control or whatever. I could lift you up with one hand tied behind my back. So don’t think for a moment I couldn’t put you down too, if I needed to.”

“I...” She wets her lips, unsure of what to say. “Perhaps.”

He snorts. “ _Definitely_.”

Watching them from the ground, Tripitaka can only sigh and say, “I think that’s Monkey-speak for ‘you’re not alone’.”

He turns to her in an instant, eyes growing dark. “No. It’s really not.”

Tripitaka sighs. “Monkey...”

“I’m serious, monk.” He looks at her steadily, more serious than Sandy has ever seen him. “That’s your job. All that touchy-feely emotional whatever. ‘You’re not alone’ and ‘we care about you’ and all that blah-blah-blah. Like she doesn’t know that already.” Sandy flushes, too ashamed to admit that she doesn’t really know it at all, that it is still beyond her imagining most of the time that her friends might call her a friend too. “She doesn’t need someone to hold her up; she’s got you for that. What she needs is someone who’s not afraid to hold her _down_.”

Sandy lets her pulse catch up with her body, lets it realise, excruciatingly slowly, that it’s not in any danger. Then, once she’s sure she can speak without shaking, she says, “Did you?”

Monkey blinks. As usual after one of his speeches, he stopped thinking the moment the words were out. “Huh?”

“Hold me down.” She closes her eyes, blocks out the world around her. “When I attacked Pigsy.” And she tries so hard to remember some small part of it, but her mind is dark and deafened by the most unbearable screams. “Is that why I didn’t hurt him worse than... worse than I did?”

When she opens her eyes, Monkey and Tripitaka are looking at each other. Silent but intense, it seems that a thousand words are passing between them. Conversations, maybe arguments, all in the blink of an eye, and before Sandy can even truly process what she’s seeing it’s over and they’re both looking at her again.

Monkey clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, that’s right.”

It is a little less comforting than she hoped it would be. But it is better than nothing, and certainly better than being afraid of herself, so she takes it. Takes the gesture, if not the reassurance, the extended hand, the offer of friendship, of compassion in the only way Monkey knows how to give it.

“Good,” she says. “Then thank you, Monkey, for restraining me.”

His smirk comforts her — it is _his_ again, smug and self-satisfied and utterly insufferable — but not nearly as much as the unfettered strength when he cuffs her shoulder, rough enough to throw her a little off-balance. Friendly, casual, but demonstrative too. Reminding her, with physical power and emotional gentleness, that his strength could smother hers. That it will, if she ever needs it to.

“Sure,” he says, and his teeth flash, sharp and white, with the promise of something more dangerous than her. “Any time.”

*

 


	10. Chapter 10

*

Back at the tavern, they begin again.

The same process, the same room, the same everything. Exactly the same as yesterday, only now they all know what to expect.

It’s enough to set Monica’s mind at ease, at least; she doesn’t relax, but she seems content with the knowledge that she’s survived the ordeal once with no ill effects. She’s prepared this time, too, rested and as comfortable as she’s ever going to be, and she has left the tavern once more in the almost-capable hands of Monkey and Pigsy.

“If they didn’t burn the place down to ashes yesterday,” she remarks, “I can’t imagine they’d do it today.”

That seems to be all the reassurance she needs. She’s still not happy about it, any of it, but at least she’s more comfortable than she was.

Sandy, meanwhile, is neither happy nor comfortable. But then, she has no personal attachment to Monkey’s bartending talents, so perhaps it’s to be expected.

She feels miserable, inside and out. Her mind and stomach are both heavy, trying and failing to settle themselves, and it is so, so difficult to stifle the voice of her younger self, to shut out the echo of her wailing and remember that she is not that helpless any more.

She settles down on the floor again, catching Tripitaka’s hand and holding it like the lifeline it is. Tripitaka doesn’t say anything, but there is a warmth in her eyes that whispers of shelter and protection. Sandy drinks deeply of the darkness she sees there, a darkness so beautiful it swallows even the flashes behind her eyes, the raw, breathtaking humanity that is Tripitaka’s and hers alone.

Finally, when she has taken in as much as she can hold, she closes her eyes, lets her head hit the floor, and tries to remember how to breathe.

And then, almost immediately, it’s happening again.

The not-quite familiar routine, the Shaman’s voice in the background as he works with Monica, and then the cold shock of contact as he moves on without warning to touch her face. And Sandy is prepared this time, at least as much as she can be, for the way the world seems to slide out from under her, for the dissolution of thought, sensation, feeling, for the sudden burst of _nothing_ , interrupted only by the rhythm of their shared, quiet heartbeats.

And she knows this time not to resist, not to try and catch herself when she falls. Knows to just let it happen, just let herself be washed away in the flood, to just ride it out like a free-flowing river, faster and faster until it falls into the sea, until the nothing bursts to life again, surges and swells swells and becomes—

—memory.

**

_The name stuck._

_No reason for it not to, really. The girl wasn’t exactly forthcoming with any personal details, a first or family name or much of anything else, and Monica had spent enough time over the last day or so rinsing sand out of... well, everything, that it made as much sense as any other._

_Sand in her clothes after she wore them, sand in the sheets after she slept in them, sand on the bloody floorboards wherever she walked. The stuff was everywhere, inescapable, not unlike the girl herself. What else would Monica call her?_

_If she had an opinion, she kept it to herself; she wore the name like the hand-me down rags Monica dressed her in, ill-fitting but mostly comfortable. No doubt it was a sad sort of comfort, having at least one difficult decision taken out of her hands._

_Monica had no nurturing instincts, but she could manage that much for the poor thing._

_And so she was: sandy by nature, and Sandy by name._

_“A fresh start,” Monica said, trying to smile. “Something that’s all your own, eh?”_

_Sandy didn’t say anything. Just frowned and stared up at her like she was speaking in a foreign tongue, like she couldn’t grasp the concept of having anything. Still shell-shocked, Monica supposed, and she likely would be for a good long while yet. If she could afford a moment of compassion, she’d be feeling one now._

_She had sent word to the resistance immediately, of course, to the small sect that had made its base in the nearby monastery, so now it was just a matter of waiting for the monks to get up off their cassocks and make an appearance._

_Oh, and keeping a scared little girl with unpredictable powers out of sight of her customers._

_Simple as anything, eh?_

_The chill in Sandy’s chest had settled stubbornly. It took up residence in the poor girl’s lungs and refused to budge, leaving her with seizing chest pains and a wet, rasping cough that stayed and stayed and drove Monica to distraction._

_That by itself, she could handle, of course, but it wasn’t just a matter of noise and physical discomfort._

_No, this was more serious by far. As hard as she tried, the poor thing simply couldn’t control the magic teeming of inside her. The sicker she got, the more it spilled over, worse and worse every time she coughed or cried. It burst out of her at the most inopportune moments, surging during moments of emotion or distress, so violent it couldn’t be hidden._

_More times than she could count, Monica had stopped outside the bedroom to find her bent double, coughing up bursts of gritty, sandy water, soaking the floorboards and, more importantly, giving her away to anyone who happened to be passing by. Not a huge risk of that, mind — Monica was well known for keeping her private places private — but drunks had a tendency to wander where they weren’t invited, and the fear of discovery was constant and very real._

_Worse, neither one of them had the faintest bloody idea how to make it stop._

_“You’re going to get me in trouble, my girl,” Monica scolded, late into their second evening together. “If you don’t learn to control that, and quick, we’ll both be looking ay the business end of a noose.”_

_Sandy, being rather occupied by heaving up her weight in water, said nothing. Not a surprise, that, even if she wasn’t busy; their growing familiarity over the last day or so had not made her any more talkative. Most of the time, Monica was lucky to get a couple of syllables out of her, a mumbled ‘thank you’ when she brought her some broth or a couple of whimpering hiccups as she mixed up a salve to try and soothe the pains in her chest. Seldom anything more than that, and never anything of real substance._

_Monica didn’t take the lack of communication personally. She was grateful, in truth, not to have to extricate herself from a clinging urchin desperate for affection or human contact. No doubt the poor thing was scared of another rejection, another abandonment, scared of what fresh misery might come if she dared to feel safe again. Tragic for her, to be sure, but it made Monica’s life a damn sight easier._

_She sat herself down on the edge of the bed, and waited for the latest explosion to wear itself out._

_“It’ll pass,” she said, as close to kindness as she was comfortable with. “If I’m right about you, a few more years and you’ll be as tough as nails.”_

_Sandy blinked up at her, confusion clouding the pain for a too-brief moment. “Don’t understand.”_

_“Yeah, I had a feeling you’d say that.” Indeed, half the time it was about the only thing she did say: she knew nothing, understood even less, and what little she did manage to grasp fell out of her head within the hour. “Suppose it’s understandable. Not like your parents could’ve prepared you for any of this, even if they had known...”_

_She stopped, cutting herself off with a silent curse as Sandy’s face started to crumple, tears already rushing to the surface at the unwanted reminder._

_She felt things terribly strongly, that girl, prone to fits of sobbing that lasted hours, as unstoppable as the rush of water from her lungs when she coughed. Her family was a particularly sore spot, the source of countless tears and more than a few unwanted rainstorms. It was a deep wound, Monica knew, and it would take a very long time to heal. Longer than the blasted chill, that was for sure._

_For now, though, Monica only had enough patience to deal with one of the two, and the latter was far more pressing._

_“None of that, now,” she chided, fumbling for a handkerchief._

_“Sorry.” Another of the few words she was willing to let out. “I didn’t... I’m sorry.”_

_“And none of that, either. What have I told you about that?”_

_She pouted, every inch the sullen little girl she should have been, the youthful innocence that fate had stolen from her. “Don’t remember.”_

_Eyes closed, forcing down a sigh, Monica counted slowly to ten. “Reckon it’s time we started exercising that mind of yours,” she muttered, mostly to herself. “Damn thing clearly needs a workout, the way you keep letting things fall out.”_

_When she opened her eyes again, she found Sandy staring up at her, fearful and just a little hopeful, the ghost of a flush crawling up the back of her neck. A small miracle, that was; Monica’s best efforts to put some colour back into that pale, gaunt face had met with nothing. By this point, she’d come to assume there was no blood left in her body at all. Nothing but water, water, and more bloody water._

_“How?” Sandy asked in a quavering voice. Then, in a blurted-out rush, like she was afraid to say too many words at once, “You’re not supposed to think too much when you’re on the sea.”_

_Monica ground her teeth. You’re not on the bloody sea any more, girl. Keep up, will you?”_

_She regretted it the instant she said it, but of course the damage was already done._

_In a heartbeat, all the air seemed to vanish from the room, and that precious splash of colour drained right back out from the girl’s skin; watching her blanch again, Monica bit down on another frustrated curse. For all her honest efforts, even faced with those welling tears and kicked-puppy eyes, compassion forever eluded her; she could no more force herself to show patience than she could force the heavens to open._

_That, it seemed, was Sandy’s job. Even as the thought struck, a faint rumble of thunder started above their heads, a warning and a threat that the girl’s emotions were about to start spilling over._

_Again._

_Monica sighed. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t kind, and I shouldn’t have said it. Shouldn’t have implied that you’re...” Ah, but what was the point in apologising now? She leaned across the bed, took a small, shaking hand in her own, and gave it a quick squeeze. “Forget about all that, yeah? You’re here now, and a darn sight safer than you ever were back there.”_

_Sandy sniffled. The tears trembled in her eyes, dangerously close to falling. A shadow fell across both their faces, heavy with rain._

_“Don’t feel safe,” she mumbled, desperately miserable. “Everything hurts and I feel sick.”_

_“That’s just the chill in your chest,” Monica said. “You’ll get over it soon enough. Assuming you can stop coughing up your bloody lungs for a minute and give us a moment’s peace, that is.”_

_Seemingly reacting to the reminder, Sandy burst into another round of violent, wall-shaking coughing. Monica softened at the sight of her, face contorting, skin reddening again, not with a flush this time but with exertion and with pain. She pitched forwards, soaking the floorboards with another explosive burst of water, as if her little body really did believe it was still on the sea. Then, exhausted, she fell back onto the bed and rolled over so Monica couldn’t see her face._

_“I want my mother.”_

_This time when the thunder rumbled, Monica didn’t try to silence it._

_“I know you do,” she whispered, feeling the words right down to her sore old heart. “And given the choice, I’d send you running straight back to her skirts as fast as those long legs of yours can carry you. But it’s not that simple, Sandy girl. Your mother, she...”_

_“She doesn’t want me. I know.” Her shoulders shuddered; unable to look at her, Monica turned her gaze upwards, to the brewing storm. “No-one does.”_

_And as the words died, swallowed by tears, the cloud above them broke open, a torrent of rainwater cascading down over their heads. Sandy’s sobbing was loud and hoarse and utterly wretched, rising above even the downpour, and all Monica could do was cross the room and quietly close the door so no-one else would see._

_“I’ll be getting a chill myself, if this keeps up,” she sighed, and waited with the patience of a saint for the rain to stop._

_The storm passed relatively swiftly, but it took rather longer for the quiet to descend over the girl in the bed. Longer for the shaking of her shoulders to slow and stop, longer still for the wailing to trail off into whimpers and then sniffles. A long, long time for her to settle at last, for the exhaustion to carry her off into sleep._

_Monica watched, still standing by the door, wondering sadly if there would ever come a day for either one of them that didn’t end with some variation of this._

_She waited until Sandy’s body was still, until her sleep was deep and complete, the absolute unconsciousness of the very young, the very sick, and the utterly heartbroken. A shame that she was all three, and a sad little blessing too; with no harbour in the cruel light of day, at least the night could hold her safe._

_For a time, at least._

_With practised silence Monica crossed back to the bed. A sigh on her lips, low enough to not wake her, she pulled the miserable, rain-soaked blanket over Sandy’s shoulders, and bowed to murmur a goodnight in her unhearing ear._

_“It’s their loss, Sandy girl,” she whispered. “Not yours.”_

_And as she turned to leave, she’d swear to gods and demons alike that the water on her cheeks had fallen with the rain._

*

_It was another two days before the monks arrived._

_Two days of impromptu downpours, of a sickly, sobbing child taking up residence in the only bed Monica had ever owned, of Monica trying and failing to find something vaguely resembling a maternal instinct. Two days of water in Sandy’s lungs, water on the air, water soaking the sheets, the floor, the walls, more bloody water than Monica had ever seen in her life; the kid could end Locke’s reign of terror with an hour and a bucket, if she could only learn how to control it._

_But she couldn’t. And Monica had many talents she could teach a young girl who might be something more, but this wasn’t one of them._

_She’d just about reached the end of her fast-dwindling patience when the blasted monks finally showed up._

_There were three of them: two older, white-bearded men she knew well, and a fresh-faced boy who couldn’t be more than halfway through puberty. They strode through the door as a single unit, with an authority that few who weren’t demons had the luxury of showing in public, and the tavern cleared out to emptiness as fast as anything Monica had ever seen. She didn’t even need to lift a finger, much less raise her voice; she only had to stand back and watch as the holy men let their presence, powerful but unintimidating, speak for itself._

_It had been a long long, time since her tavern had emptied itself so completely in the middle of the day, and a whole lot longer since she actually wanted it to happen. Bad for business, but damn good for privacy. Considering the present situation, she’d take it._

_Still, she had an image to maintain, and so, hands firmly planted on her hips, she glared at the monks and said, “One of these days you’ll get yourselves in trouble, parading about in the open like that.”_

_The oldest of the three chuckled. “One day, perhaps,” he agreed, then smiled warmly. “But not today. It’s good to see you again, Monica.”_

_“Wish it’d been under better circumstances,” she muttered, and cocked her head non too subtly towards the stairs. “Trouble, this one.”_

_“On the contrary.” Easy for him to say; it wasn’t his bed drowning in seawater. “If your theory holds true, she — and others like her, if they exist — could shift the balance entirely.”_

_Monica didn’t have the heart to point out that Sandy didn’t even have the strength to shift her own body just then, much less anything else._

_“Assuming she doesn’t get the lot of us killed first,” she said instead._

_Nothing but amusement from her visitors, but by now Monica had learned to expect no less. The monks of the resistance were nothing if not wilfully ignorant to the things they did not want to see. The world was burning to the ground, and so far as they were concerned that meant all their lives were forfeit; it gave them a lust for life that was frankly infuriating. Monica, being rather attached to her vital organs and preferring to keep them where they were, did not share that particular creed._

_“As I said,” the oldest said, with a smile that was far too charismatic for its own good, “it is good to see you again. Cynicism and all.”_

_They didn’t use names, of course. Not in public, not where any old demon or loyalist might overhear. The resistance might be an over-zealous gang of do-gooders, rather too eager to stretch out their necks for the noose, but they weren’t reckless; at least, their recklessness wasn’t stupid._

_So, then. Old friends without names. A Sage, a Scribe, and—_

_“Ah, of course. You haven’t met our young Scholar yet, have you?”_

_—and an under-educated pubescent, apparently. Wonderful._

_Still, Monica lowered her head, showing the respect owed to even the greenest of infant monks. “A pleasure to meet you.”_

_“Likewise.” Well, he had a modicum of politeness, at least; it was more than she’d cometto expect from most teenagers these days. “I’ve heard impressive things about you. Monica, was it?”_

_“You’ll have to work your way up to that, boy. Stick with ma’am for now, hm?” She shot a displeased look at her oldest friend, the Sage who had earned his title some decades since. “Is it just me, or are your recruits getting younger by the minute?”_

_“He’s a good lad.” True enough, if the fond smile was anything to go by; it took a lot to make the Sage warm to someone younger than himself. “He found the course of his young life rather lacking, spiritually speaking. We offered a... fresh viewpoint.” He clapped his young charge on the back, nearly toppling him over. “Needless to say, he’s taken well.”_

_“Good for him.” To her own surprise as much as the monks’, she actually meant it; the heavens knew, they needed all the help they could get. “Is he up for something like this? It’s delicate business. Dangerous. Not for, ah...” She cleared her throat, knowing better than to bring up the boy’s age. “...amateurs.”_

_“We all learn at our own pace, Monica.” A smile from the Scribe, just a little too knowing. “You of all people must surely realise that.”_

_Monica, wiser than she looked, shut her mouth._

*

_Upstairs, they found Sandy sitting up in bed, hugging her knees to her chest and staring out the window._

_The Scholar, young and clearly out of his depth, blurted out, “It’s a child.”_

_Monica rolled her eyes. “You’re a bloody sharp one. I can see why they recruited you.”_

_“No, I... uh, I mean to say...” He spluttered for a few moments, paling a little under her scrutiny, then got hold of himself, cleared his throat, and pressed on. “That is, when you said you might have found a young g—”_

_“Hush!” The Sage, old and wise enough to understand the need for caution, shot him a look far more deadly than Monica’s. “You should know better than to say such things out loud in a place like this. The walls may be listening.”_

_“Not in my house,” Monica muttered, though the thought had occurred to her as well, as hard as she tried to squash it._

_The Scholar coughed again, nervous and unsure which of his peers to look at. “I didn’t mean to offend.”_

_Monica waved an impatient hand, silencing him and pushing him aside at the same time. She already had her hands full with one clumsy, fool-hearted child; she did not have the patience to deal with a second._

_Sandy, meanwhile, was staring at the four of them with wide eyes, fidgeting in bed and growing visibly more frightened by the moment. No surprise, there; she was still terribly uncomfortable letting other people near, even Monica herself. Hard to know whether she was afraid of being hurt again or of accidentally doing harm to someone else, but either way she didn’t take kindly to invasion of her personal space._

_Monica had no intention of letting a trio of brash, ignorant monks bring on yet another downpour, so, glaring at all three of them, she said, “Keep your distance. She’s skittish enough on a good day.”_

_The older monks nodded, the Scribe wisely hauling the young Scholar back to stand behind him. “As you wish.”_

_“Good.” She approached the bed slowly, like she would a caged, dangerous animal. “Still with us, Sandy girl?”_

_Hiding behind her knees, Sandy inched away until her back hit the headboard. “Who are they?” Her voice was especially hoarse today, scraping jaggedly against her throat. “Are they going to take me away?”_

_With any luck, Monica thought, but she had just enough heart not to say it aloud. Instead, with cool evasion, she said, “Don’t you worry about that right now. These nice monks are here to take a look at you, that’s all. See how you’re doing. Figure out what makes you tick. That all right?”_

_Not that it would matter if the scared little thing tried to refuse, of course. But again, she had just enough compassion not to mention that part._

_Sandy peered uneasily at the monks. She looked half-sick with fear. “Do they know what I am?”_

_“They...” Monica grimaced, choosing her words very carefully. “They know what you think you are.”_

_Sandy made a strangled little noise, then instantly started coughing. Monica recoiled, expecting another flood of water, but it didn’t come. Maybe the blasted chill was finally on its way out, or else she’d finally scrounged up some measure of self-control. Either would be a bloody win._

_After a few moments, recapturing her breath and just a touch of courage, Sandy peered out from behind her knees. She studied the three strangers closely, with the curiosity of a child and the panic-stricken horror of one who had been hurt too badly to ever really trust, then, summoning all her strength, she swallowed hard and spoke._

_“Can you make it stop?” Couldn’t seem to decide which one of them she should address, so she mumbled the question at the floor. “This thing that’s happening to me? Can you make it stop so I can go back home and not be a demon any more?”_

_Monica’s heart twisted. “Now, Sandy, we’ve talked about that...”_

_“That path is closed to you now,” the Scribe said, in the dull-edged monotone typical of his kind; it made Monica want to throttle him. As if that particular breed of spiritual honesty had ever worked on a kid too young to understand what was happening to her. “What lies ahead is far more important. If Monica is right about you, the power you possess could be the hope of millions.”_

_Sandy stared at him, eyes going as wide as saucers. She made a couple of helpless squeaking sounds, then blanched even whiter than normal, on the brink of passing out._

_Monica stared too, less frightened and considerably more annoyed. “Have you lost your bloody mind?” she spluttered. “The girl can’t even get a sentence out without bringing down a hurricane, and you want to toss the hope of the world onto her shoulders?”_

_“I was merely pointing out that her condition is a blessing, not a curse.”_

_“She’s a child, you wool-headed nincompoop!” She threw up her hands, torn between disgust and disbelief. “The only family she ever had just tossed her out onto the street like last week’s rubbish, and you’re trying to tell her that’s a good thing?”_

_“It is a good thing.” He looked to Sandy again, lowering his voice to a hushed, careful whisper, quiet enough that even the walls couldn’t overhear. “You must understand, my dear, that what you are is unique. The gods of old lie on the brink of extinction. What few remain are dying by the day, hunted by demons or starved out of what corners they’re driven to hide in. For generations, we have watched as our hopes die with them, never imagining there might be...”_

_“We didn’t know such a thing was possible,” the Sage cut in. Gentle, a little more tactful than his companion, if only a very little. “For centuries, the demons have swarmed the world unchallenged, laying waste to the gods of old, burning their bloodlines to the ground. We had no idea — how could we? — that there were other means of... that is...”_

_He trailed off, a little uncomfortable, and the Scribe picked up again. “Your existence,” he said, very slowly, “challenges everything we once believed about the way gods come into the world. Your kind were never supposed to be born from ours; such a thing is unfathomable. And yet, here you are, a god born of flesh and blood. Even in its dying breath, it seems your species has found a way to survive.”_

_“And with it,” the Sage whispered, “hope.”_

_Sandy opened her mouth, then closed it again, bottom lip trembling, and looked helplessly up at Monica. “I don’t understand.”_

_“Of course you don’t. You barely even know your own name.” She gave her a quick hug, and glared at the monks. “Idiots.”_

_The two older monks looked at each other, visibly confused. Monica wondered how long it had been since they had last spoken to someone as young as Sandy, human or otherwise. Locked up in their dusty old monasteries with their dusty old books and maps and scrolls; small wonder they had no idea how to communicate with a scared, confused, lonely child who may or may not be a newborn god._

_“Um.” The young Scholar now, clearing his throat just as awkwardly as before. “If I may... could I speak with her?”_

_Cynical but not unreasonable, Monica shrugged her consent. He was just young enough that he might be a little better than his seniors at speaking to children, and even if he wasn’t, what harm could he possibly do that they hadn’t already done?_

_He approached the bed very slowly, mirroring the way Monica moved, her body language. A smart way to go about it, showing familiarity, though Monica had no intention of inflating his ego by saying so. She watched him steadily, sticking close to the girl’s side as Sandy found her hand and held on so tight she thought her fingers would go numb._

_Making eye-contact, the Scholar said, “I’m not going to touch you. I’m just going to talk to you. Can I do that?”_

_Sandy looked up at Monica, silently searching her face for an answer. Monica squeezed her hand, trying to encourage._

_“It’s okay. He’s harmless.” She smiled, a secretive sort of smile meant to set the girl a bit more at ease. “And likely useless.”_

_The Scholar bristled a little at that, easily offended in the way of all young people, but he cast his own sensitivities aside quickly enough to focus on the task at hand. Counting out out a few moments, he waited with surprising patience until Sandy took a breath and met his eye again, and only began his approach again after she nodded her approval._

_Smart boy. Patient, caring. He’d go far, Monica thought privately. For all that he looked like he was barely into his own manhood, he certainly knew his way around empathy. It was a talent sorely lacking in the world, even within the resistance’s own ranks. Not much time for such things, she supposed, while they were living hand to mouth, moment to moment._

_When he finally spoke again, it wasn’t to explain or encourage, to spew useless information as the senior monks had tried to do. He just looked Sandy in the eye, keeping a respectful distance, and asked, earnest and eager, “Why?”_

_Sandy blinked her confusion. “Why what?”_

_The Scholar smiled, bolstered by her willingness to engage with the question. He didn’t move closer, didn’t raise his voice, but he let every inch of his body broadcast genuineness and interest._

_“Why,” he said again, still gently, “do you want to go back home?”_

_Sandy’s face crumpled a bit, tears welling but not falling just yet. Monica squeezed her hand, silencing the storm before it could start._

_“It’s my home,” she said, with the broken simplicity of someone who knew no other truth in the world. “My family is there.”_

_The Scholar sighed, sad and low. For a split-second, Monica was sure she caught a flash of grief behind his eyes, something that had nothing to do with Sandy or her wretched situation. An interesting boy indeed, she mused, but kept that to herself._

_Oblivious to her scrutiny, eyes locked on Sandy, he inched a little closer to the bed. Without thinking, Monica shifted back a little to give him space._

_“Your family doesn’t want you,” he said softly. “And they don’t deserve you. They abandoned you for being what you are.” His throat convulsed as he swallowed his emotions; seemingly without even realising she was doing it, Sandy mirrored the motion. “What they did to you was terrible, and you deserve better than them.”_

_“But they’re my family!”_

_Her voice rose, not with anger but with pain and loss. Above them, for the first time, thunder rolled. The Scholar glanced up with a frown, but to his credit he didn’t let the unnatural thing distract him. He turned back to Sandy as she began to whimper, but didn’t try to hush or subdue her. He just stood there, still as a stone and infinitely patient, and watched as the whimpers turned to whines and then to wails._

_Monica moved in to try and quiet her, familiar by now with this routine, but the Scholar put a hand on her arm to stop her. Don’t, he said with his eyes. Let it happen._

_So she did. Heartbroken, keeping an eye on the cloud as it rumbled and rippled above them, they waited, the four of them together, for the tears to slow and the girl to come back to herself._

_“They’re not your family any more,” the Scholar said, when she was done. “They were once. But they dishonoured that word, made it meaningless when they cast you aside. They proved themselves unworthy, undeserving of your pain or your tears.” He leaned in, ever so slowly, and brushed the water from her face. “Tears are precious things, child. Far too precious to waste on a family who would shed none for you. You should save them.”_

_Sandy peered up at him through pale, glimmering eyes. “For what?”_

_He smiled down at her, glowing with such warmth and faith that even Monica’s cold, stony heart melted to look at him._

_And he took Sandy’s hands in his, squeezed them ever so gently, and said, “For the family you haven’t met yet.”_

**

“Stop!”

Sandy crashes back to herself as she hits the ground, though she has no recollection of falling.

The voice, high and shot through with pain, is not hers, but she feels it inside of her, wracking and rocking her body from within, as raw and visceral as if it were her throat being torn.

With great effort, she lifts her head. It’s aching, throbbing, and it feels like someone has stuffed it full of wool and nausea and the most unbearable grief. She feels like she’s been crying, like some distant part of her is crying still, but she doesn’t know for who or what or why. It is inside her, a frayed, tattered sort of sensation that feels like it doesn’t belong there, like maybe it’s really not hers at all.

She opens her mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a sob.

Definitely not hers.

The sound, the voice, the tears. The pain in her chest, her ribs squeezing her lungs so hard she can’t draw breath, the clenching in her stomach, the shaking of her limbs. Her body, her reaction, but the feeling that burns behind it does not belong to her.

Somewhere above her, someone makes a low, displeased noise. Too deep for Monica; must be the Shaman. She squints blearily up, finds him glaring down at her.

“This is not acceptable. It is not your place to interfere.”

“I’m sorry.”

The voice, the words, also not hers. Sandy looks down at herself, blinking rapidly, struggling to make sense of the conflicting sensations. It’s difficult to see anything, her vision still clogged with tears, but she is definitely not the one speaking. She feels it, tastes it, but it’s not—

She touches her chest. Feels her heart beating. Feels the moisture on her face, the ache of sorrow and grief and loss, feels it all, tangible and physical, with the certainty that says yes, somehow, it is hers.

But it’s also not.

“What happened?” Definitely her voice now. Hoarse, ragged; she feels a sharp pain in her chest. “What did I do? What’s going on? What—”

“Not you.” And as her vision clears, she realises he’s not looking at her at all, but at Tripitaka. “ _You_.”

And when Tripitaka mumbles another “sorry,” as hoarse and ragged as the first, Sandy feels the word like a rock stuck in her own throat.

“Insufficient,” the Shaman says. He sounds furious, almost angrier than she’s ever heard him. “Of everyone here, you are supposed to be the one who understands the dangers we face. You are supposed to be the voice of reason, the one calm port in this sea of irrational gods and foolish hearts. I would expect this loss of control from _her_ , not from you.”

“I said I was sorry.” Tripitaka does not sound like herself at all. She sounds like Sandy feels, ragged on the inside, disjointed on the outside. “I wasn’t prepared, that’s all. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be fine.”

Sandy studies her, finds the still-damp tearstains on her face a perfect mirror of her own. Touches her chest again and wonders whose heartbreak is inside, whose pain she’s really feeling.

“You’re hurting,” she whispers, sounding out the strange sensation, trying to make herself understand what’s happening by giving it words and a voice. “I can feel it. Why...” Panic rises up in her throat; she chokes it back down by sheer force of will. “Why can I feel you hurting?”

“Because you are connected,” the Shaman snaps. Voice sharp, eyes sharper, still he doesn’t look at her, only Tripitaka. “And she should know better than to let her emotions run away with her when she is supposed to be the one tethering _yours_.”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Tripitaka says. She’s speaking very quietly, and there are tears in her voice as well. Sandy can feel them climbing up her own throat, squeezing her silent. “I just... I wasn’t expecting to see...”

 _Oh_.

“The Scholar.” Monica, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking down at them both. No tears in her eyes, of course, but she looks close. “Sorry, girl. Probably should’ve warned you about that.”

“No. No, it’s fine. It’s not...” She stands, inching her way backwards, further and further away, until it seems like the whole room stands between her and Sandy. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine. I just need a few minutes, that’s all. I, uh, I’ll be right back.”

And she bolts out the door before anyone can say another word.

With its source gone, the grief loosens its hold on Sandy’s body. She feels herself unwind, breath by breath, until her heart feels like her own again. 

Mostly, at least, if not entirely. 

It has not been truly hers since the day they met, the day Tripitaka whispered her name against the curve of Sandy’s scythe, like she had no idea it would save both their lives. Her heart has been anchored to Tripitaka’s for a long, long time, but it is still startling, how different it feels now, when the tethering is literal.

With the return of her breath, though, comes a different kind of pain, the rasping rattle of a chill long since forgotten. She coughs, and tenses all over, anticipating a flood of water.

“Calm yourself,” the Shaman says. “It is a physical memory, that is all. Your body will realise soon enough that it is suffering from no ailment. Until then, endure the echo with dignity.”

Such a simple suggestion, Sandy thinks, from the one without the phantom weight of water in his lungs.

She stands, a little wobbly on her feet. Her head still hurts, pounding and throbbing like it did last time, if not quite so excruciating now. Less to process, perhaps, or else her mind is learning how to better endure the task; either way, she finds that she can breathe through it, that she can hold on — for the most part, if not entirely — to which pieces of thought are revenants from Monica and which belong to herself. She’s still split and it‘s still devastatingly painful, but at least now she knows how to recognise the cracks for what they are.

“Should go to her,” she mumbles, teeth clenched as she clings to her faltering equilibrium. “Tripitaka. Should be with her. Should go, should—”

“Should tend to yourself first,” Monica interrupts, kind but in her usual chiding way. “Now sit yourself back down before you fall over.”

Sandy shakes her head, ignoring the way it makes her ears ring. “She’s in pain. Mourning, grieving. I should be there for her, like she’s been here for me.”

Hard to say that part aloud, and harder still because her mind and body selfishly feel like they need her as well. The pain hammers out a rhythm through all of her, a reminder of what she’s been through, of the thousand little ways she’s come to depend on Tripitaka to hold her together and keep her in one piece, to ground her and tether her, to keep her from losing too many pieces of herself.

She can still feel Tripitaka’s pain too, or at least the echo of it, the grief and sorrow twisting in her chest, the tears streaking her face, the memory of a loss so profound it still haunts every part of her. She feels like an intruder, understanding that pain, sharing it with her so intimately. Bad enough that Tripitaka is forced to share her struggles; to reverse their positions now feels like a cruel violation.

“The tavern owner is correct,” the Shaman says, unsympathetic but not calloused. “Her tears will dry themselves. Sit, and focus on your own recovery.”

Sandy shakes her head. “She’s only crying because of me. Because I made her see something that made her grieve. It’s my place to make it better. Make it hurt less. Make her feel better. She’s done so much for me, I have to...”

She swallows, overwhelmed, and stumbles half-blindly towards the door.

Before she can get there, though, Monica is in her path. Sandy never even saw her step down from the bed, but suddenly she’s right there in front of her, holding her arm and keeping her in place like a human shackle.

“You’re no good to anyone like that,” she points out. “And besides, if she’d wanted you with her, don’t you suppose she would’ve said so? Heaven knows, that girl’s got her share of faults, but she’s never had any trouble speaking her mind.”

She’s not wrong about that, and it stings. Rejection, old and unendurably familiar, wells up in Sandy’s chest, pouring in to fill the space left empty by Tripitaka’s grief. She can still feel the bruise-tender places where it was, the parts of her that remembered — for perhaps the first time — how it felt to lose someone who cared about her. The feeling is gone now, its echo slowly dying, but she holds it close before she lets it go because it is the softest, sweetest sorrow she’s ever known.

Then, moving far too slowly to pretend it’s not an effort, she does as she’s told and sits back down.

Tells herself, in the quietest corner of her mind, where even the Shaman can’t possibly overhear, that Tripitaka isn’t abandoning her, that it’s not rejection for her to want some time alone with her private grief, that her relationship with the Scholar was so deep and so personal no-one else could ever understand. Reminds herself that not being wanted in a single, emotionally-charged moment is not the same as being _un_ wanted.

It is much harder than it should be. She can feel her young self clawing at the walls of her mind, reminding her that it has happened before, reminding her of that long, long drive with her father, of the long walk back from the North Water, of all the moments, big and small, that ended — inevitably, like it was the only possible path — with her alone.

She closes her eyes, presses her hands hard against her temples.

“Please,” she says. “Can we keep going without her?”

What she really means, of course, is that she needs a distraction. There are so many things inside her head, the parts that are Monica’s and the parts that are her own, and the tiny hidden corners still clinging to Tripitaka. So many people, so many voices, so many memories, and she is so desperate to make it all stop.

The Shaman, seeing through her as he so often does, shakes his head.

“Your control is wavering,” he points out. “Do you truly think it wise to apply even more pressure to it, and without the benefit of your human to tether you?” His expression, when Sandy opens her eyes and looks up, is hard and serious. “I would strongly advise that you wait for her to compose herself and return.”

“Don’t want to.” That’s her younger self speaking, small and sulking. Sandy swallows her back down, coughs and breathes until her voice is her own again. “Um. I mean, I don’t want to put her through it. If we can do this part without causing her more pain...”

“Ah. Altruism, is it? How admirable.”

He says it like it means the opposite. Monica, though she clearly shares his sentiment, speaks like someone whose heart is bleeding out through her words.

“Grief’s a funny thing,” she explains, very quietly. “Could be she wants to go through it. It might be healing, of a sort, for her to see him again.” She studies Sandy with a strange sort of thoughtfulness, like she knows this is something she’ll never truly understand for herself. “It’s not your place to decide if she should or shouldn’t.”

“Indeed.” The Shaman huffs, rather pointedly. “It is _my_ place.”

Monica glares at him. “Over my dead body, it is.”

The Shaman does not glare back — even he wouldn’t dare to do that, not to Monica — but he does roll his eyes. “You humans and your foolish sentimentality. Would you choose to indulge her whims, even at increased risk to the rest of us? If she cannot focus on her own task, she will only hinder our progress here, perhaps damaging all of us. I will not have my efforts jeopardised by your _feelings_.”

Monica does not have a response to that. Knows it’s true, perhaps, though she'll never say so, and maybe there’s a small part of her that’s still nervous. She does not like to be helpless, but she is. They all are.

“This is a bloody mess,” she mutters at last.

The pain in Sandy’s head intensifies, throbbing its agreement.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

And she coughs until the taste of salt water floods her mouth.

*

Tripitaka returns a few minutes later.

Eyes downcast, rimmed with red; she’s clearly been crying but she doesn’t want them to see it. There is a steely set to her jaw, like she is still fighting tears even now, but her shoulders are locked tight in a way that Sandy recognises all too well; it’s the fierce determination of someone who will not shrink from her duty no matter the personal cost. No matter the pain.

“Tripitaka.” Her throat rasps, still remembering its old illness. “Tripitaka, are you—”

“Not now.” She doesn’t lift her head, but her voice carries, hard and authoritative. “We’ll talk about it later. Maybe.”

Sandy fights to keep from flinching. She feels stung, even as a bigger part of her understands. “But...”

“ _Sandy_.” And then she does look up, fierce and just a little angry; her eyes are hard, darker than usual and still damp. “I said _not now_. Okay?”

It is definitely not okay. But Sandy knows better than to say so now, even with her lack of social training.

So she nods instead, without saying another word, and ducks her head so that Tripitaka won’t see how badly she feels the rejection. Time enough for that later, when Monica isn’t looking at her like she’s waiting for her to do something foolish, when the Shaman isn’t glowering at them both like every second wasted is a treasure stolen from him.

“Excellent,” he says dryly, as if he were a part of the conversation all along. “This is neither the place nor the time for dwelling on personal matters.” He regards Tripitaka steadily, with seriousness. “Do you feel better able to control yourself, or shall we postpone our efforts once more?”

Tripitaka doesn’t hesitate. She takes her place at Sandy’s side, settling back down as if nothing happened at all. She leaves a little more space than usual between them, though, and her grip is unpleasantly forceful when she takes her hand.

“I’m fine,” she says to the Shaman, and doesn’t look at Sandy at all. “I’m prepared for it now. I know what to expect.”

 _I’m glad one of us does_ , Sandy thinks, and feels the razorblades in her chest start to climb up into her throat.

“Are you sure?” she asks in a whisper, and she wants to add, _I don’t want you to hurt for me_ , but she knows that it wouldn’t come out right. “Are you really sure?”

Finally, Tripitaka looks at her. The hardness in her eyes fades a little — only a little — and there behind the trembling moisture is the Tripitaka she knows, the one who promised she would never abandon her again. And it is shameful that Sandy is thinking of this now, of herself and her own fear of being left alone, when Tripitaka’s eyes are still wet, when the grief is still so tangible, a blade held between them poised to strike. Shameful, yes, and crude, and selfish, but she can no more stop herself from feeling it than she can stop her heart from racing when Tripitaka touches her.

“I’m sure,” Tripitaka tells her softly. “I promised you, didn’t I?”

Sandy nods. She feels selfish and small and desperately ashamed.

“All right,” she says, and looks to the Shaman. “If you think...”

The Shaman studies them both, one brow raised to make his opinion clear. He doesn’t seem willing to argue about it, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t really trust either one of them to hold their emotions in check. Not enough to put a stop to the whole thing, it seems, but certainly enough that he wants to make the point before readying to begin again. In typical demonic fashion, it seems he can’t resist the thrill of a good old-fashioned ‘I told you so’.

“As you wish,” he says, and sighs so dramatically that even Monkey would be proud. “Let us resume.”

Sandy nods, closes her eyes, and holds Tripitaka’s hand as tight as she can.

This time, she hopes, for both of them.

**

_The monks took little time to confirm what Monica already knew._

_A couple of hours alone with a child who could summon water at will — and, rather more often, against her will — would sway even the staunchest of cynics, and the monks of the resistance were hardly that; with the world as it was, they’d been starving for something like this for a long time, more willing than most to latch onto a miracle, the first shred of hope the world had seen in far, far too long._

_Sandy took the news well enough. As well as could be expected, at least. The monks sat on the edge of the bed, keeping a little distance, and explained the situation as carefully and in as much detail as they dared voice in an unsecured room: that she was not a demon but a god, that her kind held in its hands the hope of humanity and all the world beyond. It was a lot for anyone to take in, but Sandy listened attentively, absorbing the new truths as best she could... shockingly, without tears._

_When the monks had finished explaining, she looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, and mumbled, “What does it mean?”_

_“It means you must be educated,” the Sage explained patiently. “There are many things a young god must learn, and quickly. How to use your powers properly, of course, and how to use them safely. Given your current, ah, condition, that should be our highest priority.” Monica grunted her agreement, mourning her ruined walls and floor. “But you must also learn about your people. Their history, their language...”_

_He stopped there, flashing a pointed, significant look at Monica._

_Monica didn’t even blink. Hands on her hips, she glared right back at him and said, in no uncertain terms, “Absolutely not.”_

_He sighed; clearly, this was not unexpected. “Monica—”_

_“Did I stutter?” She’d seen it coming, but that didn’t make her any less angry; right or wrong, she couldn’t afford this. “Don’t you think I’ve done enough already, letting her stay here as long as I have? Every day she sticks around gets me one step closer to the gallows, or worse.”_

_“We understand that, Monica, of course. But you—”_

_“No.” She shook her head, so emphatic and so furious that Sandy whimpered a little even though it wasn’t directed at her. “Look. I do what I can. You know that better than anyone. But there are lines I can’t cross.”_

_“Monica.” A sigh, this time, like this was no easier for him than it was for her. “She must be educated.”_

_“Yeah, and you’re monks. You can bloody well do it yourselves.”_

_The two older monks looked at each other, as though silently discussing how best to shape their argument. Monica could have told them to save their breath, that she had done more than her share already and was frankly looking forward to washing her hands of the whole blasted affair. Let them deal with the girl; she could be their problem from now on._

_Meanwhile, the youngest of the monks, the Scholar who seemed to instinctively know how to communicate with scared, lonely god-children, was frowning to himself, gazing with sightless eyes into the middle distance. He didn’t speak for some time, and when he did it was slowly and carefully, like he was piecing together some complex cipher._

_“You’re familiar with the gods’ history?” he asked Monica, as though voicing a private thought out loud. “And their language?”_

_“I’m familiar with a lot of things,” she said, deliberately evasive. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you pick up a little bit of all sorts.”_

_She folded her arms, letting the motion underscore the point and make it quite clear she wasn’t going to offer more. Couldn’t, in truth, even if she’d wanted to._

_There weren’t many things a tavern owner could claim all for herself, but her experiences and her knowledge were her own. Let the monks in the resistance speculate all they liked; heaven knew, they’d done it enough already. She’d made it clear long ago that her help came with the caveat of no questions asked. Even the naive little Scholar knew that much, and he was wise enough to leave his curiosity unsated. For the time being, at least._

_The others, unfortunately, were not so easily distracted from their point._

_“You’re the most qualified,” the Scribe was insisting. “She is a newborn god, Monica. While surely not the first of her kind, she is certainly the first we’ve learned about. She must be educated by the very best. There are none in our order, or any other, who possess even a tenth of your knowledge in these matters. You are unrivalled, unparalleled. It simply must be you.”_

_True enough, Monica knew, though she still held the whys and wherefores close to her chest. Still, knowing it was true wouldn’t make her yield more easily._

_“Just because I’ve been around longer and paid more attention than you lot,” she said, “doesn’t mean I’m about to put my neck on the line. You have any idea how dangerous it would be, trying to educate a kid in god-stuff in a place like this? No-one sees or talks more than a drunk. You bloody know that.”_

_The Sage sighed, deep and low; Monica felt the frustration rumble in her own chest as well._

_“She would be no safer at our monastery.” The shadows behind his eyes suggested a deeper story there. A recent attack, maybe, or just Locke cracking down on the old faith, as she loved to do. “No place is entirely safe these days, Monica. You know this.”_

_“No.”_

_“Monica...”_

_Her anger was rising, but she held it down; it was one one thing to lose her temper with a patron who stepped over the line, but another thing entirely to raise her voice against a monk. She didn’t have many standards, but she at least had that._

_Patting Sandy gently on the shoulder, she stood and crossed to the farthest corner of the room, as private as she could find, and waited for the monks to follow._

_“Look,” she hissed, as low as she could, once they were sheltered from the girl’s hearing. “I brought you here so you’d take her away from here, not lock me up with her for the foreseeable future. The longer she stays here, the more danger for both of us, and besides...” She glanced over her shoulder, found Sandy watching with the wide-eyed confusion of someone trying and failing to eavesdrop. “I’m a barkeep, not a bloody school-mistress. Go find someone who knows how to teach.”_

_“You’re making excuses,” the Sage told her flatly. “Poor ones.”_

_“Not that it matters,” his brother said, with rather more confidence. “The girl found her way to you for a reason, Monica; surely even you must realise that.” His expression was softer than his words, if not by much. “She is frightened, lonely, and unwell. Would you really have her thrown out of a second home just so you might avoid forming an emotional attachment?”_

_Monica bristled. “This isn’t her bloody home, it’s mine. And my livelihood, to boot. If they catch her here and figure out what she is, we’ll both be executed on the spot. Fat lot of good a dead god will do for your precious resistance.”_

_So saying, she stormed back to the bed. Sandy was still watching her, sniffling and whimpering; whether she knew what they were saying or not, the result was the same, and Monica had to place a hand on her shoulder to stop the whimpers from descending into wails and more bloody weather._

_Clearing his throat, still looking thoughtful, the Scholar said, “I’ll stay as well.”_

_Sandy perked up at that, face brightening for the first time in days._

_Monica, meanwhile, only narrowed her eyes. “Eh? You need a babysitter too?”_

_He chuckled. “No. But I can help to keep her out of sight. Teach her some of the meditation techniques I’ve been learned. Perhaps they might help her to better control her emotions and her powers.” His lips lifted into a smile. “And in any event, I’ve found that people tend not to ask too many questions once they see the robes.”_

_He was a cunning one, Monica couldn’t deny that. Nor could she deny the sly smile that crept across her own face. “And what, pray tell, do you get out of this arrangement?”_

_“What else?” He placed a hand on Sandy’s thin, bony shoulder, as though to make the point crystal clear. “I am a man of knowledge, or at least I hope to be one day. I only ask to be allowed to learn as she does.”_

_Monica snorted. “Can’t see how it’d do you any good,” she said. “Unless you’ve got god’s blood hidden in your veins too, you might as well go spit in the rain. Their language is worthless to us lot.”_

_“I disagree. Nothing that yields knowledge is worthless.” His smile widened. “Besides, wouldn’t it serve you as well, to not be the only one to know such things? To not be the one we must always depend on in situations like this?”_

_Monica snorted her amusement, and grudging approval. They’d picked out a good name for the boy, no doubt about it._

_Still, she could see no harm in letting him join in, and all the more so if he was willing to play babysitter every now and then to keep Sandy out of her hair; there was a damn good reason, after all, why Monica had no bloody kids of her own._

_“All right,” she conceded at last, regretting the words before they’d even left her tongue. “But if you can’t keep up, I’m not slowing down.”_

_The young monk nodded, beaming with delight. “Of course.”_

_Sandy beamed too, her big hopeful eyes fixed on her new friend; fear and pain almost forgotten, she seemed about as happy as Monica had ever seen her. She watched them both for a moment, the way they smiled at each other and then at her, and swallowed back a smile of her own._

_“I’m going to regret this,” she sighed. “You mark my words.”_

*

_She did, of course._

_Entirely too soon._

_It started decently enough. Sandy took to study like a bird to the skies, living and breathing like she was made for the stuff. She hadn’t had much in the way of education back in her old village — too many kids, not enough gold, and who’d need book-learning on the open seas, anyway? — and so Monica had been forced to start from scratch; hard to teach someone a new language when they could barely even read their own._

_It was a laborious, frustrating task, to be sure, and a damn sight more than she’d signed up for, but worth it for the look on her face every time she unlocked some new piece of knowledge inside herself. It was hard not to fall for the kid, even Monica had to admit, once the waterworks stopped and the little moments of happiness started to seep through instead._

_They moved her out of Monica’s bedroom, blessedly, and into a makeshift little cubby behind the bar, a barely-functional corner cobbled together from an old hiding place of Monica’s; she was loathe to give it up, but it was a far better option than risking discovery. In any case, it got Monica her bedroom back, and kept the girl nearby and out of sight at the same time. The best compromise she could hope for, all things considered, and one she would gladly take._

_The chill in Sandy’s chest lingered, as stubborn as ever, but it did not deter her from her studies. She worked hard, and with an infectious, adorable enthusiasm, drinking in the rhythm of old words like a bona fide little poet, and the more she read, the less she coughed and the less she cried._

_It was sort of sweet, the routine they found, and sort of homely. Sandy would curl up happily in her little cubby, squirrelled away safely out of sight of nosy customers, poring by candlelight over dusty old tomes nearly as big as she was; in moments of perfect stillness, when the last of the drunks had been shooed off to their beds, Monica would hear her high voice creeping through the cracks in the wood, sounding out the words as she read them, babbling out loud every little thought that popped into her head._

_If Monica could afford to be entranced, it would’ve been a hell of a challenge not to be. Water or no bloody water, a person could drown in those big hopeful eyes and that high musical voice._

_The Scholar, meanwhile, was not such a model student. He learned slowly, and with little talent for the ancient language or the gods’ history, growing increasingly frustrated that a scrawny little girl could outpace his schooling so effortlessly. Monica reminded him repeatedly that Sandy was a god and he was not, but to little effect; as was often the way of young people, all he could see was a competition he was losing to a child seemingly half his age._

_His curiosity was a gift, truly, but he had little patience to channel it properly. He wanted to know everything, and he wanted to understand it immediately, with or without the necessary work. Monica would often find him grumbling and muttering at his books, as though he expected them to pour their stories and secrets into his head with no effort at all from himself._

_It was hard labour, balancing the two of them and their respective needs, and between them they kept her busier than even her most troublesome customers._

_Juggling so much all at once, she should have known it was just a matter of time before she let her guard down in front of the wrong people._

_Most likely, she’d never know who sold them out. Like most taverns, hers had its share of suspicious patrons, and in a town as fraught as Palawa — torn loyalties in all directions, and Locke’s iron fist making sure that her side would always outnumber the opposition’s — it was impossible to know for sure who was a friend or an enemy._

_Still, she had a few ideas. Humans who drank more often with demons than each other, angry young men and frustrated old women who’d finally decided that bowing down to their new overlord was a better option than cowering in the gutter and praying for a change that would never come. Monica couldn’t really blame them for that; after all, didn’t she serve Locke’s soldiers as cheerfully as anyone else?_

_Locke’s right-hand man, she knew by his face but not his name._

_He stopped by fairly often to drink away his troubles, but most of the time he kept to himself, scattering anyone who dared come close with a thunderbolt glare. Guilty conscience, most likely, and a kind of self-flagellation keeping him distant. Monica had been suspicious about him long before he started calling down lightning to silence dissenters, and after seeing him in action... well. It took a particular sort — a very particular sort — to throw around that sort of power while making sure no-one actually got hurt._

_Old blood, she was sure. Had to be. He used his powers like someone who’d learned properly, safely. Not shoved out of sight, hidden away like a dirty little secret. He was a god who’d been living the high life for a good long while before demons like his lover turned the tide._

_Monica couldn’t help resenting him a little for that. Resented herself too, just a bit, for the way she served him all the same._

_He wasn’t bright enough to figure it out for himself, though. Which meant someone — one of her regulars, most like, nosing around long enough to get suspicious — must have tipped him off. Must’ve seen or heard something, then gone whispering to people who had no business finding out._

_Monica would likely never know the gory details, only the wretched bloody result: that one morning, bright and early, Locke’s right-hand god showed up on her doorstep to ask questions about certain ‘rumours’._

_Monica, of course, didn’t eve bat an eyelid. She knew the game well enough by now._

_“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, when he asked the inevitable question._

_He sighed, like he’d expected this. Well, he’d be even stupider than she thought if he hadn’t._

_“Come on, Monica. You and I both know these rumours don’t come from nowhere.”_

_“My experience says they do.” It took more effort than she’d care to admit to hold her poker face, to look at him and not glance over her shoulder, to stop herself from double-checking that Sandy was safely out of sight. “Drunks see the damndest things when they’re in their cups.” She looked him right in the eye, challenging and just a little threatening. “The way you drink, I’d expect you to know that better than anyone.”_

_He ignored the slight. “So you won’t mind, then, if I take a look around? See the truth for myself?”_

_Her heart stopped. She willed it to holds a steady pace when it started up again, for fear that he might somehow hear it. Could never be too careful with his sort, especially when they wanted something._

_“You bet your ass I’d mind.” Strong and steady; she poured the momentary panic into anger, righteous indignation, into a threat she knew she could never see through. “This is my bloody property.”_

_He raised a brow, calling her bluff. “You know that Locke’s only letting you do business here because it’s good for morale. A word or two from the right people, and maybe she’ll have to rethink her position on that.”_

_Monica stepped as far into his personal space as she dared. No mean feat, given how bloody big he was, in all directions; Locke had made a clever choice in sending him to do her dirty work. Not just for what he was — there weren’t too many clued in on that, she suspected — but his whole presence made him a wall of muscle. There were few in the village he couldn’t terrify half to death with the right look or the right gesture; he seldom even needed to raise a finger._

_Monica was not terrified, though. She had too much to lose to risk such a thing._

_So, unflinching, she drew herself up to her full height, looked him dead in the eye, and growled, “Just try it, sunshine.”_

_He stood there for a long moment, unmoving, just staring her down. Reminding her, without so much as a word or a twitch, that he didn’t need to. She knew as well as he did that he could swat her like a fly if the inclination took him, knew that he could paint the walls with her blood and there wouldn’t be a damn thing anyone could do to stop him._

_And she also knew he’d never do it._

_She’d watched him tussle with Locke’s opposers too many times to believe he had that sort of violence in him. All bark and no bite, him, as toothless as an old, tired dog. He’d stand his ground for a little while, hissing and growling like the obedient hound he was, then, when he could claim to have made his point, he’d turn on his heels and go crawling back to his mistress, yipping and yapping with his tail between his legs._

_She’d seen it before, more times than she’d care to count. She knew him well enough by now not to expect anything more._

_Still, it took longer than usual this time. Understandable, she supposed, with how serious this was and how much was at stake. No would-be rebels here, with their under-the-breath mutterings about the good old days, no whispers of revolution or standing up to the demon bitch; this wasn’t about power, this was about everything. Little wonder he stood his ground. Little wonder he tried, at least, before the steel of her glare finally made him back down._

_“You’re asking for trouble, Monica,” he said, at last. Tight but casual, playing the part of a friendly warning. Like he really believed they could ever be friends. “You do understand that, yeah? If there’s even a hint of truth to this...”_

_“There isn’t.” Too sharp, and just a little shaky; she had no doubt it would give her away. Monica was known for many things, and none more than her cast-iron composure. That she was letting him wear it out so easily... well, even he would be smart enough to read between those lines. “So you can take your ‘trouble’ elsewhere.”_

_He sighed again, lower this time. Weary and frustrated, like he truly believed this conversation could go any other way. He really was out of touch with the rest of the world if he thought that._

_A shame, really. In a different time and place, a different bloody world, he might have been exactly what Sandy needed. A real god, a proper one, the kind who knew their ways and their history, who’d learned the right way. A whole lot better than a washed-up nobody like Monica, to be sure. He had skills and talents, experience and knowledge that she could never teach, things that a girl like Sandy would need if she was to become what the resistance wanted her to be. Hell, if she was to become much of anything at all._

_A god like that — allowed to walk the streets in broad bloody daylight without fear of being captured or killed, allowed to be what and who he was, to show off and swagger and all the rest of it — could have gone a damned long way in helping the poor girl to understand her new identity and make peace with what it meant._

_Ah, but alas, this world was not that one, lovely as it sounded, and Monica would never trust a god who shared a demon’s bed, no more than she’d ever trust the demon herself._

_Perhaps he realised that too, the vast differences between them, the bed he’d made for himself and the one she’d never let him near. Must have realised something, at least, because when he finally gave up and backed down Monica was sure she caught the flash of something dark behind his eyes, something that looked a lot like regret._

_He shook his head as he turned away, shaking the sentiment out of his eyes and straightening his spine to steel._

_“I’ll be back,” he said. “This isn’t over.”_

_But something in his voice said he wished it was._

**

 


	11. Chapter 11

**

Sandy opens her eyes to absolute silence.

Complete. Pure. Nothing but the sound of her own breathing, high and arrhythmic, and the rush of blood in her ears.

She’s sprawled on her back again, head spinning and vision blurred. The ceiling seems to swim above her, the patterns on the walls shifting in tandem with the pain in her head. Terrible pain, blinding and deafening, and for a moment she thinks that’s the reason for the silence, the tear-streaked blurring of her vision, the disorientation flooding her senses.

It is awful, overwhelming. Not just memories this time but _knowledge_ , the skull-splitting vertigo of a lost education reasserting itself. A hundred thousand words and details all pouring themselves back into her mind and memory, some she already knew — changed, shifted, learned differently — and some entirely new, a vast landscape of knowledge spilling out all through her, lessons leaving lesions inside her head.

For a long, blind-deaf moment, that’s all she can process. Just the agony of remembering, a thousand things learned and then lost, reawakening with a depth of pain she can’t even try to breathe through. Her mind reels, rebels, trying to find a place for the new lessons next to the ones she does recall, the ones she had to learn all over again — _from_ the Scholar, not _with_ him, so many years later — after she’d been emptied, when the words and the texts and everything else had bled out of the cracks in her head, forgotten and lost.

It floods her, overwhelms her, leaves her drowned and devastated. But then it passes and her head is quiet again, if a little fuller than it was—

And what rears up in its wake is infinitely worse.

She sits up, still a little dizzy but unable to stay down. Finds the others, all three of them, staring down at her, waiting for a reaction, for an explosion, for _something_.

Monica, her jaw tight and her eye cloudy with guilt and shame. Tripitaka, pale-faced, squirming anxiously and looking deeply drained, like someone has just lifted a terrible burden from her shoulders only to replace it with an even heavier one. And the Shaman, studious but mostly indifferent, head cocked to one side, like he’s trying to decide whether or not her condition warrants his intervention.

It does not. And even if it did, she would not allow it.

She wets her lips. Her mouth tastes sour and dry.

“That...” She swallows; it doesn’t help. “That was Pigsy.”

“Yeah,” Monica says in a hoarse whisper. “It was.”

Sandy nods. Slowly, so as not to exacerbate the lingering throb in her head. Turns, with more effort than she’d care to admit, to look at Tripitaka.

She expects to find a mirror of her own expression, numb horror and sickly shock, dread and disbelief and a kind of pain that is so, so, so much worse than a headache.

Instead, she finds a mirror of Monica.

Grief. Shame. _Guilt_.

The sour taste in Sandy’s mouth seems to spread as she looks up at her, taking root in her throat and making it impossible to swallow back down. 

Twice, she opens her mouth to speak; twice she finds her voice strangled and smothered and silent, like it’s gone. It is a struggle to find it again, and it takes a concentrated effort to look Tripitaka in the eye and speak, to make herself heard without shaking.

“You...” She sounds weak, wrecked. “You knew about this?”

Tripitaka turns her face away. Subtle though it is, the motion alone says more than any words she can offer, but she still wears the robes of a monk and so she plays the part of one as well, bowing her head in confession, like she truly believes the truth will set her free.

“I had a feeling.” Speaking slowly, choosing the word very carefully, like she can pretend thinking isn’t the same as knowing. “Before we left the Jade Mountain, Pigsy... when he was asking if Locke could join us... he, uh, may have mentioned it. Sort of. A little bit.”

“Don’t understand.” Sandy is too tired and in infinitely too much pain to play guessing games right now. “He did or he didn’t. Which one?”

Tripitaka sighs. “He said we might need her,” she explains. “He said that she might have memories of that time, that she might be able to help.”

“Did he say that _he_ might too?”

“No.” Tripitaka looks uneasy. “I asked, but he wouldn’t say anything else. And he got so upset when I tried to push, I didn’t want to...”

She shakes her head, like maybe she knows that’s not an excuse, and looks around the room, taking in the still-swimming ceiling, the still-shifting walls, Monica and the Shaman, everything except Sandy herself. Like she’s trying to keep a distance, like she thinks Sandy needs the space and privacy to process this, or maybe like she herself needs space to hide her deception.

Sandy will not allow either. She leans in, tries to catch Tripitaka’s eye, and says, “You should have said something.”

Her voice sounds strange, like it’s coming from somewhere else. Tripitaka looks back at her, sorrow drawing deep lines across her face.

“I didn’t know what to say,” she says. “He didn’t really tell me anything solid, only that we might need to use Locke’s memories.”

“He was there.” Saying it again makes her shudder; she feels light-headed and terribly dizzy. “He was there, and you knew he was there.”

“I didn’t know.” Said like she truly believes that, like she really thinks there’s any difference between suspicion and certainty in a situation like this. “I had a feeling. I suspected. But I didn’t _know_.”

With some effort, Sandy clambers up onto her feet. Takes a moment to catch her balance, swaying a little, then steadies herself and turns away. Away from Tripitaka, away from Monica, away from everything that might make her feel too much or too deeply.

She presses her hands to her temples, works her way through the memories as they settle inside her, tries to remember, to find some shadow of Pigsy’s familiar shape somewhere in the depths, some shadow of his huge form, his dark eyes, his husky voice, some flicker of what she might have felt or thought to see him for the very first time as a child, towering and terrifying and—

 _Nothing_.

At least, nothing _yet_.

The only memory she has, the only image of his face from that time comes from Monica, and the only emotional reaction as well. Derision and disgust, and the faintest glimmer of disappointment.

She turns back. Her breath rattles in her chest, hard and heavy.

“Did he hurt me?” she asks Monica. There is a strange kind of power in her voice now, one that sadly doesn’t carry through to the rest of her body. “Is he responsible for what happened to my mind?”

Monica takes a deep breath, holds it for a couple of seconds, then lets it out in a sigh. “I don’t know.”

And Sandy’s body reacts all on its own, independent of her mind, oblivious to her thoughts or her will or anything at all.

She doesn’t even really realise she’s started moving, the air slipping past her like smoke, only knows that one moment she is standing, swaying, struggling to keep the ground beneath her, and the next she has Monica pinned to the wall, one arm pressed against her throat, a growl rumbling to life somewhere deep in her chest.

“ _Liar_.”

Hissing, snarling. Dangerous, dark and deadly. A part of her knows this isn’t her, not any more, but a larger part — the part she can’t control, the part that wouldn’t heed her even if she tried — doesn’t care.

Behind her, Tripitaka sucks in a frightened breath. “Sandy!”

Sandy’s heart stutters, responding by instinct to the voice that has held her afloat for so long,, but the rest of her doesn’t hear at all. There is something wild coming to life inside of her, something she hasn’t been in a long time — certainly not since Tripitaka came into her life and brought her out of the cold and dark — and it consumes everything it touches. Devours her completely, like the demon they once thought she was, like the countless demons she laid to waste in the years she was alone.

“Liar,” she snarls again. The voice doesn’t sound like hers, but there’s no-one else it could belong to, no-one else as savage as she is, no-one else as close to madness. “You were there! You must know something!”

Monica looks her right in the eye. There’s no fear in her, nothing even close to it; she wears the look of someone who has endured far worse in her time than a god driven half-mad by half-memories. She stands there for a long moment, dignified and steady, breathing through the pressure on her larynx—

And then, without warning, she surges forward and _shoves_.

The power in her, raw and unfettered, takes Sandy entirely by surprise. She staggers back, thrown as much by the shock as the strength, but she doesn’t get a chance to reorient herself; the instant she’s off-balance, Monica shoves her again, driving her down to one knee and standing over her like a fighter over a defeated challenger.

Sandy glares up at her, half-blind with rage and humiliation, but Monica doesn’t even blink. Her one eye, dark with fury, pins Sandy down as keenly as the blade of a weapon.

“Try that again,” she grits out, “and I’ll have your bloody hide.”

Hissing, snarling, vision framed with red, Sandy tries to stand.

Can’t.

Pinned down and held in place. Not Monica this time, but someone else. A strong hand on her shoulder, long fingers digging into the flesh and bone. A demon’s strength, a demon’s quiet, effortless resolve. _Shaman_ , she thinks, and the part of her that has lost its tether grows even more feral.

“You are not yourself.”

True. Almost certainly. But—

“Don’t care. Let me go!”

“Cease your struggles. Remain calm.”

But the anger in her is a wild, untameable thing. Years in the dark, in the shadows and the sewers, years of hunting and stalking and preying, of being hunted and stalked and preyed on in turn. The years she does remember, the years that came long after these hellish half-memories, years of pain and horror, of _anger_ , the years she was alone.

She does struggle, though it does her no good. A demon is almost as strong as a god, and this one knows the inside of her head almost better than she does; he holds her down easily, like she is little more than a passing nuisance. And she struggles and she fights and she resists, but it’s like throwing herself against a solid wall, nothing to show for it but bruises on her shoulders where the impact makes his fingers dig in deep.

And then Tripitaka is there as well. Kneeling in front of her, reaching for her face with trembling hands.

Small hands, gentle hands. Hands that shouldn’t belong to a boy or a monk. But then, he is the gentlest, smallest monk Sandy has ever—

No.

Not a boy. Not a monk.

Not—

Trying to remember is so difficult.

“You lied too,” Sandy murmurs dizzily. Everything is a mess inside her head, but she remembers this much. “Everyone lies, or they leave. Or they do both.” Her vision blurs again, and her ears are ringing so loudly she can barely hear anything else at all, even her own voice. “I think you did both.”

Tripitaka’s face floods with anguish, with vast, endless pain. “Sandy.”

Sandy shakes her head, tries to clear it, tries to pick apart the memories that don’t matter from the ones that do. It is much, much harder than it should be, like trying to separate colours of paint after they’ve all been mixed together.

“Yes.” She focuses with everything she has, tries to hold on to the anger, the fury, the reason she’s feeling those things in the first place. “I remember now. Pigsy. He was there, and you knew, and you didn’t tell me.”

“Sandy, it’s not that simple...”

“Silence.”

The Shaman again. Voice low, grip still bruise-hard on Sandy’s shoulders. He’s speaking to Tripitaka, but his attention is on Sandy alone, holding her down with more than just his hand.

She tries to turn around, to crane her neck and look him in the eye, but he is holding her too tightly and she can’t seem to move at all. For the best, perhaps; if she could, she’s sure she would be pinning someone to the wall again. All of them, maybe; her emotions are like a wave, crashing down over everything she touches, everything that tries to touch her, and if she was left to herself right now she knows she could never control them.

“They lied.” She keeps her gaze fixed on the floor because it’s the only thing she doesn’t want to attack, the only sight that doesn’t fill her with violence. “They hid the truth. They—”

“Those are not the same thing.” He releases her shoulder, but only for the split-second it takes to shift his hands up to her face instead, fingertips pressed to her temples, thumbs digging into her jaw, holding her silent and still. “In any case, it does not matter. If the human had discussed her suspicions with you, it would have surely done you more harm than good.”

Tripitaka wrings her hands. Sandy watches out of the corner of her eye, and the part of her that isn’t consumed with emotion feels a dull ache. Empathy, sorrow. Maybe something deeper.

“More harm than this?” Tripitaka whispers to the Shaman, _sotto voce_. “Really?”

“Yes.” Said emphatically, and without hesitation. “I have stressed countless times the importance of purity in these memories, the dangers of tainting them with misinformation and presumption. There are too many emotions at play, and not a soul in this room is thinking clearly enough to be trusted with the truth.” Sandy lifts her head, watches as he turns his hard glare on each of them, one by one, coming to stop on Tripitaka. “You would have done her no mercies by preparing her for this. You would only have poisoned her memories, tainted them and made them useless with your baseless ‘feelings’ and ‘suspicions’. A moment’s pain spared, possibly, but the harm would have been far-reaching. And extreme.”

Tripitaka shakes her head. Sandy recognises her more easily now, a girl who was never a boy, who only pretended to be a boy; her mind is much clearer with the Shaman’s fingers pressed against her skull, the numbness a welcome reprieve, and suddenly she is able to breathe through the red haze, the surge of anger and betrayal.

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Tripitaka is saying, with all the self-assured ignorance of the truly human. “Surely it can’t do harm to be prepared for the pain before it hits. I mean, surely it’s a good thing—”

The Shaman cuts her off with a sharp, spiteful laugh. Sandy feels it echoing through the walls of her mind. It makes her skull feel like its vibrating on the inside.

“Idealistic human,” he snaps, a little sharp, when his laughter has drained out of them both. “You forget our purpose here.”

Tripitaka frowns. “We’re here to help her remember.”

“No.” He rolls his eyes. “We are here to repair her mind. These memories are merely a side-effect. A necessary one, yes, but that is all. The means to an end, if you will. The process by which we are patching up the holes and gaps in her head so that I may stitch the rest back together. Do not deceive yourselves, any of you, into thinking they are anything more than that. Do not fall prey to foolish sentimentalities.” He releases Sandy’s temples, leans into her field of vision. “Remember what is important here.”

“No.” Sandy shakes her head, staggers to her feet. “I don’t remember anything. Only remember thinking he was my friend, and I was wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” Tripitaka says in a whisper. “He’s still your friend.”

“More lies. You’re making this a habit, Tripitaka, and an unflattering one.”

“Sandy.” The name is a sigh, a plea, a prayer. "You didn’t even know each other back then. He wasn’t the Pigsy you know now, he was a completely different person. And so were you.”

“No.” Scowling, resisting, even as the pains in her head, the echoey whimpers of her younger self, tell her that it’s true. “No, he _hurt_ me.”

“You don’t know that!”

“He must have done. And you must know it. Why else would you have kept it a secret?”

“Because I _don’t_ know! Because I didn’t want to hurt you with things I don’t know or understand.”

Her hands replace the Shaman’s on her face, not digging in, not trying to quiet her with magic like he did, simply trying to ground her and tether her the way she always has. Doesn’t work this time, though. Sandy feels the contact like a violation, like she was expecting an open palm and was met instead with a closed, cruel fist.

“You must know something,” she rasps. “ _Someone_ has to know _something_.”

The anger is back now, but it’s different. Not wild, not feral, not the ravenous hunger that had Monica up against the wall. It’s a child’s anger now, directionless and confused, lashing out because it hurts, because everything hurts and it’s not fair and it’s wrong and it’s—

“Sandy.” Tripitaka keeps touching her face, oblivious to the way it burns, a raw nerve exposed under her palm. “We’ll learn the truth together. Okay? Whatever happened, whether he was involved or not. We’ll see it together and we’ll—”

“No.” Unable to endure another moment of the brutal contact, Sandy pulls away. Shrinks back like a cornered animal, seeking out the darkest corners to hide in. “No, Tripitaka. _You_ will see it. _I_ will experience it. What you will see and learn and uncover, I will endure and suffer and live through. And when it is over and my mind and memories are my own, you will be able to file away what you’ve seen and call it ‘learning’, while I will have to look him in the eye and try to find my friend in the face of the monster who hurt me.”

Tripitaka doesn’t follow her as she backs away. Not with her body, anyway. Her words, however...

“Stop saying that.” Hard, yes, but not as hard as Sandy suspects she wants to be. “We don’t know if he hurt you, Sandy. We don’t know _what_ happened.”

“We know that he threatened Monica.” Sandy doesn’t look at the tavern owner, doesn’t quite trust herself not to give in again to her violent urges. “We know that he was willing to harm her to get to me. And you knew... you _suspected_ enough about his involvement to try and keep it a secret from me.”

Tripitaka looks so heartbroken. “I didn’t keep it a secret, Sandy.”

“Oh?” She doesn’t need to try and sound derisive; Tripitaka is already hanging her head before the syllable is even out. “So you would have told me, then, if I’d asked? If I’d had _suspicions_ too?”

“I...”

But of course, she can’t answer. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to see the unpleasant light it would paint her in. Doesn’t really matter, the difference; the effect remains the same.

Sandy turns away from her, turns with her whole body, with every part of her she can still use; she hasn’t retreated so completely from Tripitaka since that awful night at the North Water. It feels like decades ago now, almost as distant and hazy as the world she walks when she’s inside Monica’s head, like a half-drowned memory that isn’t really hers. But she did it then, walked away like the world wasn’t tearing apart the seams, and she does it again now.

She finds the door with fumbling, clumsy fingers, and she does not allow herself to look back.

“Sandy!”

Not Tripitaka. Not the Shaman, either. Sandy closes her eyes, swallows down the ancient, half-broken instincts to react like a child to the sound of Monica’s voice. Does not turn around. Does _not_.

“I want to be by myself,” she says, leaning in until her forehead touches the door. “Let me go.”

“Go right ahead.” She can hear Monica spreading her arms, pretending not to care. “Bloody stupid as it is for you to go out alone in this state, I’m not going to stop you.”

“Good. Then don’t—”

“But maybe take a couple of seconds,” she goes on, interrupting in a keen, tight voice, “and remember that we’re not the only ones who knew about this. And we’re sure as hell not the only ones who didn’t mention it. There’s a pair out there who know a damn sight more about what happened than me or your little monk, and I’ll wager neither one of them said a word about it either.”

Sandy freezes. One hand on the door, the other suddenly shaking at her side, a trembling fist she doesn’t remember making.

“Think about it,” Tripitaka says in a hushed, broken voice. “Monica and I aren’t the ones with answers. And we’re not the ones keeping secrets, either.”

Sandy swallows hard. Holds herself absolutely still, body and mind, until they both stop shaking, until her muscles are able to unclench themselves, until the fist at her side loosens into something that almost feels like it belongs to her.

Then, without a word, she wrenches the door open and storms out.

*

She finds him downstairs.

Stumbles into him, to be precise. Unintentionally.

Him and Monkey and a mostly-empty tavern, the air thick with the smell of stale liquor and staler smoke. The smell seeps into her skin, the empty space presses on her nerves; it makes her think of a different tavern, the one at the Jade Mountain, makes her remember the taste of victory, the heavy pressure of too much ale in her belly, of Pigsy standing over her with a strange smile twisting his mouth.

He’s sitting now, with his legs propped up on the table in front of him, watching lazily as Monkey plays around behind the bar.

Monkey, who is never able to keep still, who is tossing Monica’s bottles and cups from one hand to the other with dizzying deftness, juggling and showing off and performing tricks for the scant handful of midday patrons. They’re deep enough in their cups to be impressed by anything, Sandy suspects, but that doesn’t stop Monkey from relishing the attention.

Can’t say she minds too much, though: their rapt adoration and Monkey’s tendency to hog the limelight means that her entrance goes wholly unnoticed.

She stands there for a moment, watching, taking in the sight and the smell, the surging sensations of tavern and people and life, feeling her insides respond.

Then, all of a sudden, with no awareness of having moved at all, she is standing over Pigsy, swaying, blinking down at him with a tight jaw and tight fists, eyes stinging with some dreadful combination of anger and pain.

He looks up at her, a glazed, half-drunk smile on his face. “You all right?”

Sandy tries to speak. Tries to demand answers. _Were you the one who hurt me? What did you do? Was it worth it?_

She tries and tries and tries, but she can’t seem to make a sound. Her tongue is stuck, flattened by the sour taste of this place, this room, her voice lodged in her throat, unable to escape, and she can’t, she—

Her head spins. Her ears ring. His face is the only thing she can see, blurring and swaying like it did that night in the other tavern, only worse, so much worse—

And her vision is tinged with red and her legs are locked, and she wants to run away and hide from him, and she wants to bring up her shaking fists and strike him and strike him, and she wants so many things all at the same time, but she can’t—

The ground lurches under her feet. Her balance, what little she had, vanishes without a trace. She sways, a seasick sailor in a storm, and her legs buckle, and—

And then he’s on his feet, moving by instinct to steady her.

Good intentions, she’s certain. A friend rushing to help another, no different from the dozens of other times they’ve helped each other in the last few months. She knows this, understands it, but all of a sudden he is impossibly, unfathomably _huge_. He towers over her, dwarfing her in every direction, and his hands, gripping her arms to try and steady her, seem to swallow her whole.

“Easy, now,” he says.

And Sandy looks up at him and—

And she can’t breathe—

Can’t think. Can’t move. Can’t—

She is _terrified_.

And she doesn’t remember, not with any substance, but there are moments spilling into and out of her head now, serrated little fractures of almost-memory, sort-of memory, reactions so visceral they break to the surface even when there’s nothing left of them; she is small and she is young and she is frightened for her life, and it’s not her friend Pigsy holding her by the arms to keep her from toppling over, helping her and taking care of her, it’s a giant, a stranger she’s never seen before, someone huge and horrible and—

She hears a sound wrenching out of her throat, a strangled sort of wail, and she tries to twist it into a word, into something that might make some sort of sense to someone, but she can’t do that either, can’t speak, can’t move, can’t—

“Hey!”

And there is Monkey, strong and strapping and _safe_ , stepping between them like he’s breaking up a bar-brawl.

He moves like water, comforting and familiar all at once, smooth motion and lean muscle, and just the sight of him draws the breath back into Sandy’s lungs. He can’t possibly understand — as far as she knows, he’s the only one who doesn’t — but he moves as if he does, shouldering Pigsy out of the way and gliding in to take his place. He’s large too, but it’s different on him, softer somehow; looking at him doesn’t make Sandy freeze or seize, and when he touches her it doesn’t make her want to scream.

“I don’t...” It’s not much, but at least she’s gotten a word out. “He’s not... he...”

“Uh huh.” Unfazed, he tilts her chin up, peers into her eyes with a frown. “The demon let you out of his sight in this state?”

“No, I...” She swallows. Her vision is clouding, the world growing dim and hazy around her; she feels dangerously close to passing out. “I had to be alone. By myself, away from him. Away from all of them. Had to, I had to...”

He blinks, as though responding to something she’s not aware of, then his frown deepens. “What the hell happened to you?”

Sandy shakes her head. Can’t explain. Probably wouldn’t, even if she somehow could. She can still feel Pigsy’s presence nearby, too close, overwhelming and all-devouring, and just picturing his huge frame inside her head makes sweat break out all over her body, makes her feel sick and faint.

Apparently Monkey senses that too, because he’s starting to look worried now. He steadies her, helps her to find her balance, and says, “You better sit down.”

“No.” She’s shivering, eyes rolling back, but she can’t stay here, can’t be in the same room as him, can’t see him or hear his voice. “No, please. I need to go. I need to get out of here, I...”

Behind them, Pigsy clears his throat. Sandy starts, every muscle tensing, bracing for... she doesn’t even know what. Bracing, though, like her life depends on it, and she doesn’t know whether it’s remembering a moment when that was true or whether it’s just her old self — no, her _young_ self — being forever scared of everything.

To Monkey, carefully avoiding Sandy’s eye, Pigsy says, “Maybe you should take her someplace else.”

Monkey looks a little confused, but he doesn’t argue; clearly, Sandy’s condition speaks for itself. He spins her around with surprisingly gentleness, and nudges her towards the door, stopping only long enough to throw a quick look back over his shoulder.

“Try to keep this place in one piece while I’m gone,” he says to Pigsy, voice strangely sharp. And then—

And then they’re outside.

The cool air is a shock against Sandy’s skin, fresh and crisp, heavy with the threat of rain. She gulps it down, as much of it as she can take without making herself sick, swallows the cold and the damp, and the sharpness in her lungs is a blessed, glorious thing.

When she’s done, when she’s sure she can still breathe without choking on her emotions, she looks up to find Monkey staring at her.

He’s frowning, a bit confused, maybe a bit worried too, but mostly just himself, the way he always is. The familiarity of his dark face is a comfort beyond words, and Sandy lets herself drown in his deep, earnest eyes, drinks them in, as deep and ravenous as she gulps the moisture in the air.

“Where do you want to go?” If there is any worry in him, he’s careful to keep it out of his voice. “You’re acting even weirder than usual.”

Sandy shakes her head, tries to clear it enough to find her voice and enough of her mind to answer the question. Even out here in the relative safety of a world without walls, it is hard to speak through the lingering echoes of panic, of her younger self and the memories she still can’t quite reach, of the terror and the pain and—

“Somewhere quiet,” she croaks. “Somewhere with plenty of water.”

He blinks a few times, puzzled. “We’re at a tavern, if you’re thirsty.”

“No.” She wets her lips; she’s dreadfully parched, throat razed almost raw, but that’s not what she means. “Not to drink. Want to look at it, want to listen. Just be close to it.” Eyes closed, breathing in the scant droplets still in the air, she tries to find a way of phrasing it that he might understand. “I’m not... I’m not completely myself right now. Everything feels wrong, all out of joint. Need something to keep me grounded.”

When she opens her eyes to look at him, he’s even more confused. “I thought the monk was supposed to be doing that?”

Sandy feels a whimper bubbling up in her belly. She holds it down, holds her breath, holds herself as much in control as she can. Not much. Not enough. She feels untethered and weightless, and completely, utterly lost.

“She lied to me.” Despite her best efforts, the whimper bursts out of her, surging like a tidal wave; it transforms the words into something different, something shameful. “She hid the truth.”

“Yeah, I know.” Speaking slowly, blinking rapidly, he’s trying so hard to make sense of the nonsense pouring out of her. “She lied to all of us. That’s old news, right?”

It takes her a moment to grasp what he’s talking about: not this, the deception that hurts, he’s still fixated on the littler one, the boy and the monk, the pointless titles that never held true. Unsurprising that it would be his first thought; as far as she recalls, it took some time for him to readjust his feelings on that.

Not her, though. Tripitaka is just Tripitaka, always was and always will be. The name is hers, and so is its power, even if she wasn’t born with them. Sandy has known that for a very long time, long before she met him, long before the North Water, long before any of—

_This._

This, which is nothing to do with that.

And it is absurd — maybe a little insulting — that he would think something as pointless as that would affect her as completely as this. She looks him in the eye, lets him see the truth she still can’t speak, lets him see this is about much, much more than a name. Watches as he stops blinking and starts biting his lip instead.

And all his efforts to pretend he’s not worried sort of bleed away, vanishing into something dark and troubled and terribly, frighteningly un-Monkey-like.

“What happened?” he asks, suddenly deathly serious.

“Not here.” She swallows, tries so hard to keep breathing. “Water, Monkey. Please.”

“Okay.” He exhales a shaky sigh. “Okay. Let’s go.”

*

He brings her back to the palace.

Leads her there by the hand, guiding gently, like a teacher or a parent. Like he knows she’s not capable of following under her own power, like he can see the confusion and disorientation in her.

He doesn’t say anything about it, of course — for all the tact he lacks in other parts of his life, in this at least he’s surprisingly perceptive — but he keeps her close and keeps a firm grip on her hand, like maybe a part of him is secretly hoping he can anchor her as well as Tripitaka does.

Did.

Not any more. Not since—

She closes her eyes.

Stumbles. Tries not to fall.

He doesn’t support her like Tripitaka would, doesn’t help her to recapture her balance. He knows better than to draw attention to a moment of weakness. He just lets his presence be enough, strong and silent like his best days, lets her follow at her own pace and slows his own to match it.

Doesn’t speak, either. Possibly he doesn’t know what to say, possibly he just doesn’t want to distract her when it’s clearly an effort just to keep her feet on the ground. Either way, he keeps his mouth shut until they come to a stop, until they’ve climbed what feels like a million steps and emerged at the top of the palace.

He guides her into one of the bigger bedrooms, one she remembers from her years stalking the shadows of this place for information, then out onto the balcony, to a view so high it almost makes her queasy, looking down over the waterfall.

“Water,” he announces, releasing her hand with a grin. “Good enough, right?”

Sandy inches her way forwards. Cautious, careful, acutely aware of her shaky equilibrium; she’s not sure she trusts herself not to fall over the edge if she gets too close. Even from so high above the waterfall, she can hear it roaring, can see the white-capped foam, the clear water cascading down into the nothing below. It is—

“Good enough.” She hugs herself until her ribs feel bruised. “Yes, it’s perfect. Thank you, Monkey.”

He grunts his acknowledgement, but doesn’t say anything more. Just stands back, arms folded, keeping a few paces back from the edge.

Must still be uncomfortable for him, Sandy thinks, looking down from such a high balcony after what happened at the Jade Palace. She wonders if he still remembers his thoughts and feelings in the split-second before he jumped, wonders if he was afraid or angry, wonders if he’d made his peace with the possibility that he might not survive. She wonders if he even really cared, if losing Tripitaka would have been such an awful tragedy that his life would have been forfeit anyway.

A morbid, harrowing thought. But one that Sandy understands far too well. Even now, even feeling raw and betrayed, still she gladly would throw herself off this balcony, or any other, just to try and save her.

She shivers. Her bones feel hollow inside her, and the chilly too-high air cuts through her clothes and her skin like there’s nothing of them. She feels split apart, torn open, wretched and exposed and desperately vulnerable, and she is inexplicably relieved that Tripitaka isn’t here to see her like this, or to hear the dark, desolate thoughts in her head.

They stand there for a while, her and Monkey, both gazing over the edge, both lost in their own painful thoughts. Then, finally, Monkey’s natural restlessness propels him to break the silence.

He looks over at her, clears his throat, and says, “This isn’t like before. The, uh, weirdness. It’s not your usual weirdness.”

Sandy closes her eyes, lets the sound of the falls wash over her, lets herself imagine she’s swimming. “No,” she whispers, feeling the ebb and flow carry through her voice. “It’s not.”

She hears him swallow. “Bad?”

“Bad.” Hugs herself with one arm, uses the other to brace against the rail. “I don’t want to remember any more.”

She doesn’t turn around, but she can sense him stiffening behind her, hears the hiss as he sucks in his breath.

“Why not?” He’s trying a bit too hard not to sound frustrated, and sounding all the more so for his efforts. “You dragged us all the way back here so you could remember this stuff. What the hell happened to make you change your mind?”

She wants to tell him everything. Wants to explain, as best she can, the horror and the dread, the betrayal seething inside of her, the things she doesn’t know — the things Tripitaka insists she can’t know — but which she feels burning so deep inside of her they might as well be indelible truths.

Tries to tell him some of it, at least, but the words won’t make it past her chattering teeth.

She’s shivering again, but not with fear this time, or with the memory of an old, old chill. None of the paralysing panic she felt when Pigsy stood up and towered over her, no trace of her younger self, the part of her that still feels like a child. It’s something else that makes her shake now, something that feels more like shock, like the sound of a bone shattering, the fraction of a second where there’s nothing to do but wait for the pain to hit.

A sob bubbles in her chest, and she fights to keep it from reaching the surface. Fights to breathe through it, to swallow it down, to stop _shaking_ —

“Hey.” And there he is, standing by her side, leaning on the rail like she can’t feel his discomfort, like she can’t hear the way his breath stutters inside his chest, a different kind of fear but no less paralysing. “If you can’t talk to me, I’m gonna have to go and fetch the Shaman. And I really don’t want to do that. So maybe try and talk to me a little bit, so I don’t have to do that?”

His honesty makes her laugh. Makes her choke out a noise that wants to be a laugh, anyway, a sort of jagged, hiccupping spasm that she can’t quite control. But it helps. And she breathes. And—

“He was there.” It bursts out of her like a wail, chasing the laughter like it’s desperate for something less awful to hold on to. “He was there. And she knew.”

Monkey breathes a sigh of relief. He’s no less confused than he was a moment ago, but at least she’s talking again, at least she’s trying to communicate. This, he can handle, even if he can’t really understand it.

“Okay.” Speaking slowly, carefully, trying to piece it together. “One word at a time. He?”

“Pigsy.”

“Right. She?”

“Tripitaka.”

“Okay. And—” Stops, eyes widening. “ _Oh_.”

It’s a heavy, weighted ‘oh’. Not just comprehension, but pain as well. An ‘oh’ that not-so-secretly means ‘ouch’, that means he understands but can’t bring himself to say the words.

Monkey has a talent for that, for letting his feelings bleed through without really giving them a voice, showing empathy even when he can’t fully express it. He’s not looking at Sandy now, but his expression is open and honest, and for some reason that dampens the pain in Sandy’s chest. Refraction, maybe, like sunlight through glass.

She looks away. Focuses on keeping her breath in her chest, keeping her pulse steady. “That’s how he convinced her to let Locke join us,” she says, probably unnecessarily at this point. “Said we might need her memories.”

“For the Shaman’s mojo?” He still doesn’t understand, she knows, but he tries for her sake, to make it easier. “To go into her head like with Monica?”

“Think so.” The idea tastes awful on her tongue; it makes her shudder, makes her insides roil. “They were there. Her, maybe. Him, definitely. Monkey, they were _there_. And Tripitaka knew, she—” She clenches her teeth, spits the next word with venom: “— _suspected_.”

And then silence for a very long time. Silence, grating and comforting in equal measure, and she peers down over the edge of the balcony down and down at the falls below, at the white-capped water rushing and running and rippling.

She lets her heartbeat catch the rhythm of the pouring torrent, hard and fast and endless, lets her insides become like water too, fluid and forever in motion, lets the sensation remind her who she is. Strong and lithe and powerful, a shadow that strikes under the cover of darkness; she has evolved and she has grown and she is more — so much more — than the frightened child she feels clawing inside her, trying to throw her into horror and madness.

Finally, after a lifetime of trying to keep hold of herself, buoyed along by the rapids surging below, she turns to look at Monkey.

Has to, she realises; she needs the contact. For the first time in her life, she feels the urgent, human need to connect to another living soul. After so much time spent tethered to Tripitaka, dependent on her touches and her presence to keep her grounded, she finds that she doesn’t know how to endure without it. Shuddering and starved, even as she flinches, her body craves it like air, like water.

Monkey isn’t looking at her, though. Not avoiding her, just distracted by his own thoughts; he’s staring down at the waterfall too, looking distant and morose, jaw tight and shoulders like rock. Sandy wants to leave him alone with his thoughts, even if they’re unpleasant ones, but she also craves his presence, his body to fill the space normally held by Tripitaka. Every breath she takes in isolation, even with the water pounding in time with her heart, brings her dangerous close to her young self, and she is so scared of that — of _her_ — that she will seek solace even from Monkey.

It takes a moment for him to sense her eyes on him, and he shakes himself out of his reverie like a waking dreamer. Looks her up and down, then sighs so heavily it shakes his whole frame.

“You think they’re the ones who did this to you?” he asks carefully. “Messed up your head?”

“Don’t know.” She breathes unsteadily, tries not to think too hard about the mess he’s talking about. “Tripitaka says that’s why she didn’t tell me. Because she doesn’t ‘know’ what really happened, because she didn’t want to ‘assume’...” Hard to say that and not feel the anger rise up in her again, but she turns back to the waterfall and imagines all those terrible emotions being carried away in the surge; it helps, a little bit. “But I feel it, Monkey. I look at him now, and I feel so afraid. More afraid than I remember ever feeling before in my life. And I think I... no, I think _she_...”

“She?” Monkey blinks, visibly struggling to keep up “Tripitaka?”

“No. Me.”

His groan is comical. Would be, at least, if her head wasn’t hurting so badly. “You’re confusing me, here...”

“Confusing myself too,” she says, without irony. “But she... the younger me, the one that Monica remembers... it’s difficult to keep her inside, you know?”

“Uh, no. I really, really don’t.”

Understandable. Who could, unless it was happening to them? But she can no more explain it than she could explain the process of breathing, of moving, of emotion or sensation, of being alive, to someone who’d never experienced those things. A part of her wants to try, even fruitlessly, but the rest of her has enough trouble making itself understood even on a good day. Coherence has never been her strongest point; why would Monkey, or anyone else, expect her to suddenly start making sense now?

“It’s hard,” she tells him, as simply as she can. “To explain it. Harder still to endure it. Everything is hard, and I’m sorry if I can’t...”

“Nah.” He shakes his head, nudges her shoulder. “Don’t be stupid.”

She elbows him back, trying and failing to smile. “The part of me that was there, the part I’m only just starting to remember... she is dreadfully afraid of him. And the part of me that’s just _me_ , the part that doesn’t remember it yet, not fully... that part of me just feels hurt and upset and...” She swallows. “And betrayed.”

The word hits home. Monkey flinches, then goes quiet for a very long time.

Processing, maybe, or reeling, or else just trying to make sense of what she’s failing to adequately express. He seldom has the patience for that sort of thing, but maybe he’s more worried than he wants her to think because when she looks at him she finds his brow furrowed in quiet concentration. Like he really, really wants to be better at this than he is, like he wants so badly to be the thing Sandy can no longer find in Tripitaka. It is touching, even as she can tell he’s deeply frustrated.

Finally, seemingly in lieu of anything else, he growls and says, “I get it.”

A wave of relief crashes over Sandy’s head, unexpected and so powerful that her knees buckle a little. She steadies herself, gripping the balcony rail in a white-knuckled fist and breathes, “Do you?”

He coughs. A little uncomfortable, a little awkward, possibly even a little shy. He always struggles when he’s forced to talk about his own feelings; Sandy doesn’t expect that to change any time soon, but she is grateful beyond words for his willingness to try.

“Sort of.” He clenches his jaw, no more talented than she is at giving a voice to his inner thoughts. “Not the brain stuff. That’s just... I don’t think I’ll ever get that. I mean, sorry, but...” And he spreads his arms, a sort-of apology that has little sincerity. Sandy shrugs her acknowledgement, stays silent as he continues. “But the betrayal thing, definitely. I mean, that’s sort of what I went through, right? In the nightmare factory. When your creepy demon buddy sent me back to my...”

And he stops, flushing hot.

The heat is a tangible thing; this close, Sandy’s sure she can feel it pouring off him. Not discomfort this time, or shame, but anger and pain and grief. Sandy is very familiar with the difference; she’s been struggling with it herself — with all of those feelings and more — for a long, long time.

“Davari,” she says in a hushed murmur.

He makes a sound like a snarl, like a hiss, like all of her most primitive, feral parts. Something inside of her feels it like a lost limb, like blood and kinship.

“He was my friend,” he grits out. “At least, I thought he was. Thought he was human, too. But he wasn’t, was he? Not human, not my friend. Nothing. He was just a lying, cheating, traitorous—”

Stops again before he can say the word, reeling away from the edge and pacing the length of the balcony in long, furious strides. His fists are twisted into fists at his sides, desperate for something to do, maybe something to punch, and though he doesn’t extend his staff she can tell that he desperately wants to. Wants to do some damage. Wants to tear something apart.

Sandy has worked very hard to silence those particular instincts in herself, to cage the wild animal prowling in her chest. It kept her alive once, but she doesn’t need it any more, and she cannot trust it to stay under her control. She tastes blood on her tongue just from thinking of it, and her fingers twitch and tingle with the memory of Pigsy’s skin under her nails, of the gashes she ripped out of his face, of—

She shudders.

Takes another moment or two to look down at the waterfall, to ground herself in its sound and its beautiful, natural chaos, in water so pure and so sweet she can almost taste it even from way up here. Then, reluctantly, she turns away, facing Monkey with all the empathy she has in her.

“Do you want to spar?”

He freezes. Spins on his heel, as lithe and graceful as his namesake, and stares at her like she’s somehow making even less sense than she was a moment ago.

“Are you serious?”

She shrugs. “You seem upset. Angry. Understandable, of course; I would be too. Am, maybe. So I thought you might like to pour your anger into something productive, instead of...” She gestures vaguely, taking in his rising agitation. “Instead of _this_.”

Hard to tell if she’s making sense, but she must have said something right because he softens a little and stops his pacing. Studies her for a moment or two with a strange expression on his face, like the anger is bleeding out into something gentler, like he’s not quite sure if he really wants it to, like maybe a part of him is trying to hold onto it in spite of himself.

But anger is a fickle thing, and once it starts to fade there’s no getting it back. This, Sandy has learned many times, for good and for ill.

His shoulders slump in defeat as the fury fades, then he shakes his head. He looks drained, like the effort of calming down was a workout all its own.

“I’m good,” he says, sighing like he doesn’t really feel that way at all, like he’s only saying it for her sake. “But thanks for the offer.”

Sandy knows better than to push him, whatever his true feelings. “Okay.”

And they both stand there in silence, both trying to keep their breathing steady, trying not to get lost in their pasts, he in the one he remembers all too clearly and she in the one she can’t remember at all. She knows only what little they’ve gleaned from Monica’s memories, scrambled fractures that are only half her own, but she feels it so much more keenly than she did before.

She feels the pains in her chest where the chill made its home, feels the new-old knowledge from those forgotten lessons spilling back into her head, feels the pain of abandonment as vivid and visceral as if it were happening all over again.

And, of course, she feels the fear.

More powerful, more crippling than anything else, it seeps up through the cracks inside her, crawling out from places her memory can’t reach, places she can’t touch, places that maybe even Monica hasn’t seen. She can’t explain it, can’t make it make sense; she has no way of knowing anything for sure, nothing to explain why she feels the way she does, only the way it paralyses her. _Fear_ , like a howling, raging monster waking up for the first time in years and years, alive and ravenous.

She shivers, feeling frozen all over. “We should go inside.”

“You sure?” He narrows his eyes. “Thought you wanted to be near the water.”

“I’m calmer now,” she lies. “And you look uncomfortable.”

He grunts, not denying it but not really affirming it either. Doesn’t need to, really; they were both there at the Jade Palace; they both watched as Tripitaka went flying over the edge, both felt the same heart-stopping flood of disbelief and horror and feeling the world slow to down a crawl. Sandy doesn’t want to wonder how things would have turned out if Monkey’s cloud hadn’t finally chosen to heed his call, only knows that he wouldn’t have been around to live with the consequences. But she would have. Her and—

 _Pigsy_.

She remembers the way he stood by her side. His big hand over her back, stroking, steadying, soothing as best he could while wrestling with his own grief. His presence, a cold comfort but a comfort just the same, his quiet strength keeping her upright, keeping her grounded when all she wanted was to follow them over the ledge, to fall and fall and fall until—

Her stomach seizes, with such violence that even Monkey notices.

“Okay,” he says quickly. “Inside, then.”

And he nudges her, hasty but still gentle, back in through the door.

*

Indoors, she’s the one who starts pacing.

The inside of the palace feels uncomfortable now, like ill-fitting clothes or an itch under the skin; she can sense Locke’s presence, and Pigsy’s, in everything she sees, everything she touches. The exotic drapes on the walls, the rich carpets covering the floors, the big broad window letting the sunlight stream in, everything. The whole place gleams and glimmers with luxuriance, with _them_ , and Sandy can’t quiet the corner of her mind that knows it was built on the bones of gods.

Monkey watches her, keeping his distance. He doesn’t speak for a while, but she can tell he sort of wants to; much like her, he often needs a little while to figure out how to phrase himself, how to put into words the clamour running through his head. He’s a little better at it than she is — no doubt a product of practice — but he still struggles sometimes with finding the right words.

This time, she doesn’t let him. Pre-empting him in a nervous, blurted-out rush, she asks, “What did it feel like?”

He doesn’t need to ask what ‘it’ is, and she doesn’t insult his intelligence with needless clarification.

His face twists with anguish, with memory, and the part of her that is broken envies him the ability to remember, to know with absolute certainty that the betrayal he feels gnawing at his gut is real, that it actually happened, that his friend truly was his enemy, that the dark emotions boiling in his belly have a solid, tangible source.

It takes him a moment to find his voice, and when he does, much like her, the words pour out of him like a flood tearing through a dam wall.

“It’s the worst feeling in the world,” he says. “You think you know someone. You think...” His throat seems to close up for a moment, like a sort of seizure. “You think they’re your friend. Think maybe there’s one person in the whole stinking world who isn’t just sitting around and waiting for you to disappoint them. You think they _care—_ ”

He whirls away, turns to face the wall so she can’t see the look on his face, the awful heartache twisting into violence, into the only shape he understands.

Sandy closes her eyes, pretends not to notice the shift in him. Gives him the freedom of not being seen at all, of being alone with his memories and his pain.

Ears sharp, she can hear him moving, can feel the hurt and the rage pouring out of him as he fights for the strength to keep going; it sounds nothing like the feelings simmering inside her, but she recognises it just the same. In him it is rage and righteous fury, five centuries of humiliation and impotent hatred. In her it is a child screaming, discordant and incoherent, and endless, endless, _endless_ —

“Please,” she whispers, not for him but for herself.

Whether he hears or not, she can’t tell, but he finds his voice again a moment later. Low but hard, made bold by the temper that he wears so proudly on his sleeve.

“He never cared,” he whispers. “Not for a minute. Not even for a second.”

Sandy opens her eyes. Finds him looking at her, hot and hungry.

“Maybe he did, a little bit?” she offers, blithe and foolish. “Somewhere under all his ambitions?”

“No.” His eyes darken then flash, a threat that isn’t really meant for her, isn’t really aimed at anything either of them can touch. “No, it was always about that. The whole time, everything he said, everything he did, all of it. He never saw me as a friend. Never even saw me as a person. Just as a tool. An _opportunity_.”

She watches the anger start to burn in him again, watches him wrap it around himself, eyes closing and then opening just halfway, lidded and heavy with the weight of everything he’s feeling.

“Are you sure you don’t want to spar?” she asks, as unobtrusive as she can. “You look like you want to hit something. Better my face than the wall, yes?”

He sighs. Attempts a sigh, anyway; it sounds more like a growl, like the rasp of leather against splintered wood, and the look on his face says it feels as painful as it sounds.

“Nah,” he says again, a little grudging this time. “I’d only hurt you.”

Sandy bristles at that. “Not made of glass.”

Only halfway true, really. She’s not actually that fragile, of course, but so much of her feels like it is — brittle and breakable, weak spots running all through her, inside and out — that she might as well be a chandelier, prone to shatter if it falls. She doubts a blow from his staff would do much harm, but a word or a look may well be the end of her. Especially the kind he’s giving her now, the anger bleeding out into sympathy, into understanding and compassion and so much softness that isn’t like him at all.

“I know you’re not,” he says quietly. “You’re tough. But you’re also sick. And I’m too angry to go easy on you.”

Sandy swallows a growl of her own. She hates that they keep using that word, _sick_ , like the damage to her mind is no worse than the chill she remembers settling in her chest, the pains wracking her body when she coughed up water. Like the cracks inside her head can be cured so easily, with a bowl of broth and a warm bed.

She doesn’t say that, though. Doesn’t tell him, either, that he wouldn’t need to go easy on her, that he has never, never needed to go easy on her. He knows that, she’s sure; he’s just venting his own impotence.

So she grits her teeth, swallows her aggravation, and says, “I wish I felt that way.”

He quirks a brow. “Angry?”

“I suppose.” It’s not something she’s used to wanting, but the alternative is so much darker. “Don’t want to lose control. Don’t want to hurt people. But to feel like I _could_ , like I’m not so... so _helpless_...”

It is a hard word to say. Hard for him to hear, too; he flinches, like the word is a blow from her scythe.

“You’ll find it,” he says, after a few moments. “You just need to get past the other stuff first, that’s all.”

It is a blessed thing, Sandy thinks, that they’re the only ones there, that she doesn’t have to turn around and see Tripitaka watching them with judgement and a clenched jaw, arguing that anger and hatred are never the right reactions to suffering like this. Monkey understands better than anyone — and better than Tripitaka in particular — the crippling power that helplessness and fear can hold; no-one else knows how it feels, this specific breed of pain, to feel trust and love twist into something darker, betrayal and heartbreak and hurt.

“I hope you’re right,” she says wearily. “Tired of being confused. Tired of being _scared_.” She thinks of the pieces of her past she does know, all those years alone in the dark. “I hate being scared.”

Her voice cracks, throws her back into her younger self, makes the fear even sharper, a blade pressed to her tongue. She hates that as well, and she hides her face because she is so ashamed, so humiliated by the smallness inside her, the shivers and the whimpers and the never-ending tears that won’t stop no matter how hard she tries.

Monkey is silent for a while. Cracking his knuckles, chewing his lip, like he’s trying to think but isn’t really sure how thinking works. He’s not much for brainwork, Sandy knows, preferring as they all do to leave that sort of thing to Tripitaka, the wisest and the smallest of them all.

But Tripitaka is not here right now, and even if she was Sandy doesn’t know that she’d want to hear what she has to say. Her faith is shaken, every part of her still reeling and roiling. The secrecy feels like a barb lodged in her side, a throbbing pain she can’t ignore; it twists and digs itself in deeper when she breathes, threatening infection with every minute it goes untended.

Finally, in a low voice, Monkey says, “You want to talk to them? Pigsy, I mean, and his ex-girlfriend?”

Sandy’s insides clench; it’s not something she wants to think about, but the question is inescapable, bleeding through the holes in her head.

“Have to, I suppose.” True, and she hates it. “Whether I want to or not.”

“You don’t _have_ to...” he starts, with the trademark ignorance of someone still free to choose his own fate.

“Yes, I do.” She’s blinking rapidly, she realises, fighting back the sting of tears. “Can’t leave it half-done. If they were part of this, if they were involved, I need their memories. Need them so the Shaman can try and fix my mind. Need to live it and experience it and go through it all over again. Doesn’t matter how I feel about it, doesn’t matter if I want it. I can’t be healed without it.” The helplessness swells in her again, a tidal wave that could easily drown her if she let it. “So, yes, I do _have_ to.”

Monkey exhales a low, whistling sigh. “Right. Yeah. Uh, sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She swallows a few times, hard. “But to answer your question: no, I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want any of this.”

His breathing gets shaky; she doesn’t need to look up to know that he’s wringing his hands, that he has no idea what to say to that.

“You, uh...” He coughs delicately. “You want me to go with you?”

It’s the best he can do, she knows, but it’s still not an easy question. Sandy thinks about it long and hard, grappling between two very different sides of herself. Since this began, she’s grown unaccustomed to doing things all on her own, so used to having Tripitaka standing beside her, Tripitaka holding her hand, Tripitaka touching her back, her arm, her hips. So used to having Tripitaka _present_ , a boundless source of strength, so used to feeling like she could face even her very worst nightmares as long as Tripitaka was there at her side.

But she doesn’t feel that way any more. She is upset now, and frightened, and she feels so thoroughly betrayed; it is tempting beyond words to want nothing more to do with anyone, human or god or demon, to go back to the loneliness and isolation that made its home in her for all those years. It wouldn’t be so hard, she’s sure, to become that dark, feral creature again; when she is able to silence the scared little child inside her, she finds herself almost halfway there already.

It’s what she wants. What a part of her wants, anyway. Trust is pain, she’s learning all over again, and so is friendship. Believing in people, wanting to care for them... why risk even more suffering?

She swallows down the childishness, the fear. Becomes _herself_ , or some old, primitive version of it.

“No,” she says. Voice clear, if just a little bit too high. “No, I’ll do it alone.”

He doesn’t ask if she’s sure. Maybe he understands this as well. Maybe that’s why he was so sullen and reckless after the breaking ground, so determined to take the fight to the Jade Mountain, to the exclusion of all else. Determined to leave even Tripitaka to her folly, to let her journey alone to the North Water and the dreadful, foolish fate that awaited her there. Whatever it took, so long as it got him to the Jade Mountain, so long as it got him to the place where he could finally take some action.

Whatever his feelings, understanding or something else, he only nods. Doesn’t speak until she’s halfway to the door, keeping her spine straight even as every bone in her body wants to bend and break and be brittle. Supports her by not supporting her, by letting her stand strong by herself. Even when she can’t, even when she’s not, he knows how it feels, what it’s like to prefer to stumble under his own power than stand upright supported by someone else.

He clears his throat when she reaches the door, though. Waits for her to turn around, to pause and look him in the eye.

Then, very quietly, he says, “If it’s worth anything, I think I’d be scared too.”

And Sandy thinks, though she knows she’ll never say it: _there are no words for how much it’s worth_.

*

She goes down to the prison while she is still able to breathe.

It’s easier, she thinks, facing Locke. Easier than facing Tripitaka and Monica, and much easier than facing Pigsy.

He may be the one she saw, the one she knows was there, but she can’t bear the thought of looking into his mind, of wrapping his thoughts and memories around herself, of letting them touch her at all. It paralyses her, leaves her sick and worse than helpless; she would sooner break completely than watch herself suffer through her friend’s eyes, than see herself as an enemy, or something even less.

Locke is simpler. No complex feelings, no connections or emotions, nothing but the usual hatred between gods and demons.

They are supposed to be enemies, have always been enemies. Long before any of this, Locke was a tyrant and a demon, and Sandy was a god driven into hiding by demons and tyrants just like her. Long before she ever knew or understood why the sight of her filled her with such visceral, physical horror, Sandy knew that it was her duty — a _god’s_ duty — to stand against her and everything she was.

She has always hated Locke, and she has always been repulsed by her. She is not afraid to face her now with both of those feelings, no more than she has ever been afraid to face her before.

And she does, gripping the bars and pretending it’s anger that makes her hold so tight, and not the shaking of her legs.

Locke, sensing the shift in her, doesn’t offer her usual cheerful greeting. She keeps a safe, cautious distance, leaning against the wall at the very back of the cell, keeping her chains close at hand, like she thinks she can use them as a weapon. Like she thinks Sandy’s so dangerous she might need to.

She’s not wrong.

“So,” she says, uncharacteristically sober, “change of heart?”

She doesn’t need to elucidate. Sandy feels her jaw clench.

“You were involved,” she says, tasting acid. “You and Pigsy.”

Locke doesn’t bother trying to deny it. Doesn’t even look like she thinks there’s anything worth denying in the first place. She simply shrugs, like she’s not been accused of anything damning or cruel, like there’s no difference between shattering a god’s mind and thieving an extra mug of ale at the tavern. Knowing her, it’s possible she really does feel that way.

“Yeah,” she says, after only the briefest pause. “What of it?”

The casual indifference is better than Tripitaka’s mumbled denial, at least. Easier to swallow, if nothing else. But then, maybe that’s just because she can’t feel betrayed by someone she never liked in the first place.

“You...” She wets her lips, wills her voice not to crack and give her away. “You’ve known the whole time you were with us?”

Locke shrugs; the chains rattle. “He explained what was going on with you, yeah. Didn’t take a genius to figure out the dirty details.” She narrows her eyes, studying Sandy with rising unease. “You here to steal my memories or looking for payback? As you can see, I’m not in any position to deny you either, so have at it.”

Bravado. Arrogance. Sandy has spent enough time with Monkey to recognise the reek of it.

“Not here for either,” she says, and watches as Locke’s whole body relaxes. “Not yet, anyway. I came here to talk.”

“Oh, wonderful.” The derision is entirely fabricated, of course, a poor mask for her relief; Sandy wonders which one of them she’s really trying to convince. “That’s all you lot ever do, isn’t it? Talk, talk, talk.”

She rolls her eyes, making a show of her irritation, but Sandy can tell by the way she’s standing, the way she shifts, if possible, even further away, that she is not nearly as carefree as she pretends to be. She is afraid, if not for her life then at least for her safety. Sandy wishes she could use that effectively, wishes that there was enough left of the god who stared her down as they departed the Jade Mountain, who warned her not to look at her lest there be fatal consequences.

That god was dangerous. This one is small and weak, and she can’t remember how to intimidate a demon who may or may not have broken her into pieces and torn her mind apart.

“You stayed up with me,” she says. Slowly, cautiously, testing her own recollection as much as Locke’s. “Several times. On the journey here.”

“Didn’t have much of a choice in that, now, did I?” She’s making a show of looking and sounding bored, but Sandy can tell it’s just another front. “You’re not exactly teeming with hair-care experts in your little group, are you? It was either me or your blood Monkey King, and let’s face it: he doesn’t have the touch.”

Sandy ignores that. “But you did know. All those times you stayed up with me, tending me and talking to me, you knew what was happening. Maybe you know the details, maybe you don’t. But you knew enough. And you knew that I didn’t know anything. But instead of telling me or taunting me, you just talked. About your feelings, about _my_ feelings. About all sorts of things, but never about _that_. And I don’t...” The anger, what little of it she’s managed to find, vanishes, strangled by a sob she will not let out. “Don’t understand why.”

“Seriously?” Her laughter is crude, but not spiteful; pity, no doubt, more than genuine compassion, but still. "You don’t understand why I might not want to spill all my dirty little secrets when your Monkey King had me at the end of a chain and your brains were all in bits? Made no secret of wanting me dead, neither one of you, and you had me ripe for the slaughter.”

“We wouldn’t have,” Sandy says softly, admitting the truth for the first time.

“So you say.” She doesn’t look convinced, not at all; Sandy can’t really blame her for that. “Regardless, I wasn’t about to take my chances, now, was I? Had better things to do with my time than stick my neck in a noose and hope you were feeling too charitable to pull it tight.”

Sandy shakes the bars, silencing her. Tries to use the violence to ground herself, to reclaim a little of the anger, but it’s too far gone, dissolved into thin air like it was never there at all.

It takes her a moment to steady herself after that, to find her own voice among the other noises, the chaos and vertigo rolling around inside her head, echoes of things she doesn’t remember, shadows of things she does. She sees herself for a moment, as if from far away, in the dead of night, sprawled on the floor as Monkey holds her down, blood under her nails, blood on Pigsy’s face—

Her stomach lurches.

“You knew,” she says again, and this time she doesn’t even try to hide the tremors in her hands and voice. “You. Him. Tripitaka. All of you. Everyone except me and Monkey. You all knew. And when I... that night, when I attacked Pigsy. You all knew why it happened, why _him_ , but none of you said anything. You let me think I was unstable, losing control. Let me think I’d hurt a friend for no reason, let me think I was _dangerous_...”

She stops. Can’t keep going, even though she wants to. She’ll start to cry, or possibly do something worse.

Watching her, Locke’s expression clouds a little. More pity, perhaps? A little different, if so, sort of softer. It’s not a good look on her, and it makes Sandy feel vulnerable and defensive at the same time.

“You were out of your mind,” Locke says. Quiet, a little tentative, the words carry none of her usual scathing sharpness. “Who could say for sure why you went after him? Who could say for sure why you did anything? The state you were in...”

She trails off, leaving the rest unsaid.

Sandy growls, but can’t deny it. In any case, Locke’s priority has always been her own self-preservation; she’d be the last person to risk throwing oil on that particular fire.

Still, it’s hard to let it go. She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, then takes another. Her whole body is shaking, and it’s only her grip on the bars that keeps her from slumping to the ground. She feels cracked and splintered, not just on the inside but outside as well, like her body is falling further apart the more pieces of her mind are put back together. The part of her that can’t draw a breath wonders if maybe it was better the other way after all.

Finally, with a force of will she doesn’t want Locke to see, she takes a step back. Holds herself upright for a moment or two, just to prove to herself that she can.

“The Shaman wouldn’t want me to be here,” she murmurs, more to herself than to Locke. “He says it’s bad to know too much about what happened before we go through it. Says talking about it makes the memories tainted, makes them unreliable and useless.”

Locke quirks a brow, clearly trying to figure out why Sandy is telling her this. “You want me to promise I won’t tattle?”

“No.” She takes a breath. “Just saying. He’d be angry with me if he thought I was talking to you about this, but I have to know. Before we go inside your head and you force me to endure it again, I have to know what you did to me.”

Locke studies her closely, silent and uncharacteristically sober, from a lot of different angles. Examines her through narrowed eyes like she’s some exotic creature she’s never seen before, then cocks her head and looks at her like she’s the saddest little thing she’s ever seen, then pulls back her lips into a strained, effortful sneer, like she thinks she can make this easier on them both by remembering that they’re mortal enemies.

Finally, looking strangely drained, she tears her gaze away and says, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Sandy raises a cynical eyebrow. “You truly expect me to believe...”

“Not really, no.” She speaks with her usual carelessness, each word a shrug made into sound. It’s not nearly so much of an effort as it was a moment ago, and that makes Sandy uneasy. “But where’s the sense in lying about it now? You’re going to be rooting around inside my head soon enough anyway, right? Far better for me if I’m straight with you from the get-go.”

She’s being sincere. Trying to be blasé, in her usual manner, but it’s not really working. There is something uncomfortable lurking behind her eyes now, tightening her shoulders. Not quite fear — in all the years Sandy has known her and fought against her, at least all the years she can remember, she has never seen fear touch any part of Locke — but something a little closer than she’d expect. She keeps it hidden, of course, never one to let her weaknesses show, but it is definitely there and the sight of it makes Sandy’s skin crawl.

“Do you mind?” she hears herself ask.

Locke stares, blinking. “Beg pardon?”

“Do you mind?” Sandy says again, slower. She’s not sure why she’s asking — she knows that Locke would never grant her the same courtesy if their positions were reversed — but still some part of her feels it like a duty. Probably the part still bound to Tripitaka, soaked with human compassion. “Using your memories, going into your mind. Do you mind if we do that?”

The clarification does not lessen Locke’s confusion. “Why the bloody hell are you asking me that, you daft thing? I’m your _prisoner_ , or did you forget that?”

It’s a pointed word, probably intended to wound. Sandy ignores it.

“A person’s mind is their own,” she says instead. “Even a demon’s. Even yours. Even if you _did_ —” But she can’t say it. Even if she knew the details, she couldn’t say it. “No matter what you did. I won’t invade your mind, or anyone else’s. Not without permission.”

“Well, aren’t you charitable?”

“No.” Her insides are shaking; it takes a great deal of effort to keep her outsides from following suit. “But I won’t do to you what you... what _was_ done to me.”

Locke quirks a brow. The pitying look doesn’t leave her face. “Not me,” she says again, with unexpected softness. “Even if I had that sort of power, I wouldn’t waste it on that. Too much bloody work, and you know I don’t like getting my hands dirty.”

“Yes. You never were one for doing your own deeds.” Sandy swallows hard. “Doesn’t matter. You or someone else, I don’t care. I won’t touch your mind without permission.”

“If that’s the way you want it.” Locke cocks one shoulder, consenting with a careless sort of half-shrug. “Have at it, sweetness. You know well enough what you’re getting yourself into, you don’t need me telling you there’s nowt pretty in here.” She taps the side of her head, then flashes a dry, self-satisfied grin, like she’s proud of the fact. “I’ve never bothered pretending I was anything other than the bad’un I am. You want to roll around in the muck looking for answers, be my guest.”

Sandy thinks on that. Nods slowly, thankful and disgusted in equal measure. “And you still claim, even knowing we’ll see the truth for ourselves, that you did nothing to me?”

Locke looks up. Meets her eye, unwavering and wholly unafraid.

“Never touched a hair on your precious little head,” she says, low but with raw, vehement power. “Can’t promise you much, you poor little wretch, but I can promise you that.”

Instinctively, Sandy finds that she believes her. Not because of what her muscle memory is telling her — it has always been unnaturally discomfited by Locke, for all that she tried to twist the unease into loathing — but because of what she sees in her now, what she remembers seeing in her during those long, quiet nights on the road.

 _Honesty_. Whatever moral and personal faults Locke may have, she has always been honest. Like she can’t fathom being anything else, like deception and falsehood are simply too much hassle to be worth her time. The truth fits her well, like her silks and sashes, like the finery she drapes over her body and her home, over everything she touches; it covers up the darkness beneath, makes her gleam, and she wears it beautifully.

“All right,” Sandy says at last. “If you say it’s true, I believe you.”

“Good for you,” Locke retorts. “Don’t much care if you do or not.”

Sandy might believe that too, but as she turns to leave, she hears the sharpness of her breath, a shaky nervousness that catches the air and seems to set it on fire. It ignites something in her chest too, a discomfort that doesn’t have a name, and suddenly she finds herself afraid to turn back. Wondering if perhaps there’s another truth hidden behind all that honesty, one that even she isn’t brazen enough to give voice.

Sandy swallows, hesitating with one hand on the door. She takes a deep breath, steadies herself with her forehead pressed to the cold surface, and wills her voice not to break.

“I’ll be back,” she says, with as much authority as she can muster. Not enough, never enough. “With the Shaman. And then we’ll probe your mind.”

Locke chuckles. Sandy pretends not to hear the tremor in the sound, for both their sakes.

“Wonderful,” she says, voice rough and ragged and sandpaper-sharp. “Can’t bloody wait.”

And Sandy thinks of her promises, of her openness and honesty, and wonders why her sarcasm suddenly sounds so much like sorrow.

*


	12. Chapter 12

*

Returning to the tavern shouldn’t be more terrifying than talking to Locke, but somehow it is.

Monkey goes with her, no doubt sensing she’s uncomfortable going alone. Goes in front of her, really, like a sort of bodyguard, like he thinks his broad shoulders and strong arms can somehow shield her from the acid in her belly, the spasms in her chest, like he thinks his presence is enough to protect anyone from anything, even the horrors inside themselves.

Thoughtful. Sweet. Touching, yes, but he’s as far out of his element as she is. Confused by her confusion, adrift by the way she drifts, lost in the way she loses herself.

She hates herself for standing behind him anyway, for willing herself to believe he really can protect her from the inevitable, from things no-one could. Terrified, again, as they enter the tavern, of the way everyone turns to stare, the heat of their eyes burning through Monkey’s barrel chest and straight into her, the low thrum of their voices as they see her, whispering and murmuring in the back of her mind.

They’re all in the main tavern, the four of them together. Monica is back behind the bar where she belongs, and she has Pigsy diligently beside her; on the face of it, she seems to be teaching him how to properly mix drinks, but there are shadows under both their eyes that suggest they’ve been talking about something rather less pleasant. Sandy’s chest seizes at the sight of them, and she has to turn her face away or turn around and run back out the door.

The Shaman and Tripitaka are sitting together at a quiet table. Thoughtful and studious, they’re poring over a scrap of parchment together, discussing in soft but heated tones, like a teacher and his student, or perhaps like two—

— _scholars_.

Sandy stumbles, clutching at her head as a wave of memory sweeps over her. Powerful, inescapable, and entirely her own, it feels like a thousand moments in miniature, relived, relearned, then cast aside like old bones.

Monkey spins on his heels as she loses her balance, steadying her before she can fall. His face is blurry when she looks up, and when he asks if she’s all right, his voice sounds odd, distorted almost beyond recognition. He looks like a shadow, sounds like an echo, and though there is a part of her that knows it’s the wrong way round — that _he_ is the present, that _they_ are the past — still she cannot connect.

She shakes her head, squeezes her eyes shut, holds on tight with everything she has, clings to her name, her strength and her body, the mind that is her own, broken and warped but _hers_ , holds fast to what she knows and what she is, what she has spent a lifetime struggling to become. She will not lose herself again, will never again open her eyes to a swirling, spinning sky, to the paralysing dread of what she might have done, will not come back to a world of pain and confusion. Not again, never again.

She breathes. In and out, slow then fast then slow—

And her senses reel, overwhelmed.

The taste of broth on her tongue, of warmth, comfort, _home_ —

The heat of a candle-flame, hot wax sticking to her fingers—

The smell of old parchment, full of excitement and promise—

She opens her eyes.

Sees a monk’s robes, a young face with wide eyes. Familiarity, something that stirs inside her, something she can’t touch, a memory inside a memory, and as she watches they seem to they clash against each other, two young people both dressed in monk’s robes, different but so much alike. She can’t tell them apart, can’t tell one monk or moment from another.

Eyes stinging, head aching, she hears her own voice cut through the air, high and bright and happy, “Am I smarter than him?”

And though the room is still blurry and indistinct, she recognises Monica’s big form, her broad shoulders and the way she shakes her head. “Not _smarter_ , Sandy girl, just _faster_. We all learn at our own pace.”

And she chuckles and turns away, and Sandy laughs — then and now — and she looks at the scowling monk and thinks that _faster_ is better than _smarter_ anyhow.

And then she blinks again, a few times, because her vision is swimming and her head is hurting and the lights — faded and dim just a second ago — are suddenly much too bright. And when she stops blinking, when her eyes are finally able to focus again, it’s gone, the sensation and the moment, all of it. Nothing left, only the pain in her head and the sting behind her eyes, not from dizziness this time but something else entirely.

And the monk is not a monk, just a girl in monk’s clothes, and her name tastes like poison on Sandy’s tongue, _Tripitaka_ , like a curse that once, long ago, might have been a prayer.

And he— _she_ looks up at her with wide, beautiful eyes, and—

And Sandy reels, shrinking away like she’s made of thorns.

“I’m fine,” she forces out. “Forgot where I was for a moment, that’s all. But I’m fine now, and I didn’t need you to make me that way.”

Tripitaka’s face falls. “Sandy...”

She stands, reaching for her, like she’s reached for her a thousand times before, reflexively trying to connect, to tether her the way she always does, to ground her and anchor her and connect her to herself, to the present, to the person she is.

Doesn’t work this time, though; Sandy doesn’t need to be grounded, and she learned a great many years ago to never offer a second chance to an anchor that has failed. Tripitaka’s hands are strong and small, and she touches her with such gentleness that Sandy is sure it will break them both, but instead of leaning in and absorbing her warmth the way she normally would, she tenses and pulls away.

“Said I was fine.” Her voice is high and tight; she feels like a fishing line pulled too taut, ready to snap. “Don’t touch me.”

Tripitaka flinches, struck by the sharpness in her voice, and maybe a little by the rejection as well. “Sorry. I was just...”

“ _Don’t_.” Her ears are ringing, her head pounding like a drum. She doesn’t know if she can do this by herself, but she has to try. Can’t let herself be dependent on Tripitaka, not until she trusts her again. Has to prove that she can take care of herself, in case that never happens. “I don’t want you to anchor me any more. Don’t _need_ you to.”

“I beg to differ,” the Shaman murmurs, with his usual listlessness.

Sandy ignores him. She turns away from both of them, from everything and everyone. Bends double, takes her head in her hands, and holds on until the force of her grip hurts almost more than anything, until there’s nothing else, until it’s the only thing she can feel, her own fingers pressing down on her skull, squeezing like vices.

It sort of works. Mostly works. Enough, at least, that when she raises her head she knows who and where she is, enough that she can recognise the momentary lapse for what it was, a shadow, an echo, a moment been and gone a long, long time ago.

She’s breathing heavily, raggedly, but she is herself, and when she looks at Tripitaka again her vision and her thoughts are clear. Her legs feel weak, but she is standing under her own power and not swaying or stumbling, and she is breathing all on her own. Tiny things, all, but together an accomplishment all her own. She doesn’t need a false monk who only hides the truth. She doesn’t need—

“Idiot god.”

The Shaman again.

The only one of them that she truly _does_ need. Her healer. The difference, far too often, between life and death, sanity and madness.

She does not flinch at the sound of his voice. She looks up, meets his angry gaze, and says, low and furious, “I am my own anchor.”

“No,” he says hotly. “You are not. To assume such foolishness is to embrace your own destruction.”

Sandy glares. Turns to Monkey, expecting him to step between them, to take her side against the Shaman as he always does. He’s always happy for an excuse to thrust out his chest and glare at his erstwhile enemies, to strut and preen under the parchment-thin pretence of defending someone else. She expects more of that, posturing and scowling, the self-righteous ‘I know her better than you do’ that he wears so handsomely in moments like this.

But it doesn’t come.

Instead, he looks like he wants to take the Shaman’s side. He’s staring at her with a strained, sickly look on his face, like he doesn’t really know how to process what he’s just seen, what it made him feel. Sandy wonders how long she was gone for, how long that seemingly brief moment of sensory overload really lasted, that it would make him look at her like this.

He clears his throat, looking upset and a little guilty. “He... I mean, he’s kind of ri—”

“No.” Sandy reels away from him, her one ally. “No, I don’t need her. I am _well_.”

“But you’re not.” He’s smart enough not to try and touch her like Tripitaka did, but the urgency in his voice carries. Worse, he moves as he speaks, inching subtly closer to the Shaman, like he’s choosing sides in a war. “I mean... you will be. You’re tough, you’ll be fine. But you’re not yet. And you need... uh...”

“Help,” Tripitaka whispers. “You need help.”

Sandy tries to cry out, but there’s something stuck in her throat. She looks around, at all of them, searching with feverish desperation for agreement, understanding, for anything. But all she sees are reflections of the same thing, the same opinion, the same expression, the same _everything_ scrawled on each of their faces.

The Shaman, severe and serious, visibly on the brink of tying her to the nearest chair and commanding her to be sensible. Tripitaka, no less serious, though it doesn’t look quite so severe on her, biting her lip, anxious and deeply upset. Monkey, all tight jaw and square shoulders, sticking to what he thinks is right even knowing it will hurt them both. Monica, still behind the bar with a strange, maternal sort of sorrow, fists clenched at her sides, like she’s holding herself back, willing herself not to drop everything and rush to her side.

And Pigsy—

 _Pigsy_.

Looking at him, Sandy’s mouth floods with the taste of broth and blood, anger and fear mixing inside of her into something foul-tasting and rancid. She wants to throw herself at him, to become a wild creature made of teeth and claws, the monster she must have been that night she attacked him in her sleep. She wants to be vengeful and violent and cruel, but at the same time she wants to run and hide, to cower and cringe and crawl into the smallest hole she can find.

She is a god, a warrior, a force of destruction, so dangerous she needs the Monkey King to hold her down, but she is also a small child staring up into the face of something so horrifying that just the sight of it is enough to prick her brow with sweat.

She looks at him and she—

She tries so hard to remember something, anything, but her head is empty.

Nothing of him as her enemy.

Nothing of him as her _friend_.

Nothing at all.

Just the raw, ragged rage that she can’t ever seem to reach. Just the visceral, violent, all-encompassing terror that is trying to strangle her.

She turns away. Breathes with the raggedness of her rage, gulps down stale, sour air like the taste of it can chase away the terror.

Grasps at the one thing she does remember, the one piece of herself she has. Holds it close, wraps it around her heart, her mind, then turns back, looks him in the eye and says in a rough, hoarse whisper:

“Did you hurt me?”

“Uh.” Not confused, not even a little. Not even really surprised. He just doesn’t know what to say. “I, uh...”

“Simple question.” Listening to her own voice, she sounds so calm, so steady. Nothing like the way she feels, nothing like _herself_. Like no version of herself she has ever met, past or present. “Your... I mean, Locke. She said she never hurt me. Never even touched me. Promised it.”

“I... oh.”

Doesn’t deny it. Still doesn’t look surprised. Sandy doesn’t want to believe a demon, not at the cost of a cherished friendship, but Pigsy looks as tormented as she feels. Only the truth can cut that deep, this she has learned.

“She promised,” she says again, softer. “Can you do that?”

He stares at her for a few more seconds, like he’s trying and failing to take her in, then he sighs, heavy and tired and deeply sad.

“No,” he says at last, soft with surrender. “I can’t promise I didn’t touch you.”

Sandy swallows. Expected that, of course, but it doesn’t sting any less.

“Okay.” The word is a tremor, practically incoherent. “But did you _hurt_ me?”

His expression twists, anguish and heartache and—

And she doesn’t want to believe she sees regret.

But then he shuts his eyes and whispers, “ _Sandy_...”

And she no longer has the choice to not believe.

“Oh,” she says.

And her eyes are closed when Tripitaka takes her hands, and her body is shaking when she holds them, holds her, and her head is throbbing and her heart is sobbing when she whispers, “Come on...”

And she tugs at her, guiding her, so gently that Sandy just wants to cry and cry and cry.

And somehow it’s easier, not having to look at her, not having to see her face and think, _you knew, you knew and you didn’t tell me_. And she is in so much pain, inside and outside, and it’s taking up so much of her strength to fight it that there’s none left to fight Tripitaka, none left to resist as she gently, _gently_ , guides her outside the room, outside the tavern, outside to—

To fresh air and a sky dark with clouds.

Sandy breathes in and feels a pain in her chest and a pain in her head. And then she breathes out and feels Tripitaka beside her, a warm body and warm robes and a presence that is so, so cold.

And she closes her eyes again, and she turns her face up to the sky and she lets all those sensations tear through her, the pain and the cold and all of it, like rushing little rivers all searching for the sea.

And it is no surprise at all, not for either of them, when the clouds break themselves apart above their heads, and rain down enough water to drown them both.

*

After, when it’s all over, Tripitaka shakes the rain out of her face and says, “I’m sorry.”

Sandy watches the sky. Water dripping down the back of her neck, clinging to her hair, her skin. Water, so much water, and maybe the weather simply wanted to break, maybe it was just the right or wrong moment for them to step outside. Or maybe it was her, just as it was all those years ago, her emotions tearing apart the heavens until they burst.

It’s been a long time since she felt so much, since she had so much pent-up passion and pain that she was able to summon and channel and use water from so far away.

And much, much longer since she did it without meaning to.

She doesn’t really remember very well, how it used to happen back then. Bits and pieces of what she gleaned from Monica’s memory, and the remnants of her own slowly taking over. Doesn’t really remember doing this; mostly, she just remembers being ill. Pains in her chest, her throat. Pains in her head and, the worst pains of all, the ones inside her heart. Doesn’t really remember much of what she did, her body or her powers or anything else, only what she felt. Wrong, inside and out. Lonely, except when Monica was there. Scared and lost and abandoned and—

 _Betrayed_.

Not then. Now. It takes her a few moments to separate them.

Without looking at Tripitaka, she says, “You heard him, yes?”

Tripitaka fidgets uncomfortably at her side. “I heard him, Sandy.”

“He didn’t deny it.” She nearly chokes on the taste of it; even with the rain still on her tongue, the words sicken her. It takes more effort than she’d care to admit to lower her face from the sky, to turn and look at Tripitaka instead of the angry, rolling clouds. “Did you ask?”

“Did I...?”

“Ask.” Harder, sharper. “All that time you knew and didn’t tell me. Did you talk to him about it? Or her?” Tripitaka is still frowning, unwilling to answer, but her silence speaks volumes. “You said you didn’t tell me because you didn’t want to assume. Because you didn’t... because you _couldn’t_ know. But he was right there the whole time, and so was she. Did you even bother to ask?”

Tripitaka exhales slowly. Sandy can read the answers in the tightness tugging at the corners of her mouth, the truth she’ll keep to herself and the lies she’ll twist into an answer. Even now, knowing how much pain her dishonesty has caused, still she is too ashamed to admit the truth they both know.

“Sandy...” she says, and the name is meaningless.

“Tripitaka.” Hers is not meaningless. It is a warning, a threat. _Courage_ , the kind she has never before had to use against Tripitaka, the kind she never thought she’d want to. “Did you _ask_?”

“No.” And the defeat, the humiliation, is a visceral, physical thing. “No, I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know. Pigsy is my friend, and so are you. And I couldn’t bear the thought of...”

She trails off, shaking her head. Her shoulders shake. On another day, Sandy might take pity on her, might spare her the pain of hearing it said. Not today.

“...of one of your _friends_ harming another?” It comes out sharp, serrated, like a blade coated in rust. “Or carrying the burden of knowing and still keeping it a secret from me?”

“Neither. Both. I don’t know.” She sighs, tired and upset. “Sandy, it’s not my place. Your past, his past... I wasn’t even born yet. I don’t belong there. It’s not my place to carry the things he did, or to protect the child you were. It’s not my place to order Pigsy to spill his secrets, and it’s not my place to tell you what someone else might or might not have done to you. You’re here to learn about your past, to re-experience it with the people who shared it with you. Good and bad, right and wrong. It’s your life, and it’s theirs, but it’s not mine.”

“You’re my anchor,” Sandy whines, so childlike, so much like her younger self that the sound of her own voice makes her feel sick. “Were, anyway. Before you lied to me. Before...”

Stops. Turns away and back to the sky, watches the clouds begin to disperse. Wishes she had the strength to bring another downpour, one powerful enough to carry her away, wash her out to sea and let her drown like she should have done all those years ago. But she hasn’t been that strong in such a long time, and no matter how hard she tries she only finds silence and clearing skies.

“I didn’t _lie_ to you,” Tripitaka says. Defensive but not heated, like maybe she wants to be angry too but knows she can’t be. “And I’m still your anchor.”

“No.” She stiffens, shudders, shakes her head to drive down the throbbing in her head, to silence the ringing in her ears before it deafens her. “Not any more. How can I trust you with my mind, my sanity, my _identity_ , when I can’t even trust you with the truth?”

Tripitaka doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even try. She just stands there by her side, breathing slowly, like she’s hoping to lead by example, hoping she can settle the rattling in Sandy’s chest by settling her own, like she thinks if they stand there for long enough, side-by-side, they’ll begin breathing in tandem again, like they did before.

Doesn’t work, of course. Sandy’s breathing is as chaotic as the rest of her, rough and ragged and ready to burst out of her like a scream or a sob. She doesn’t want to breathe slowly, doesn’t want to breathe in tandem with Tripitaka; she wants her breathing to match the way she feels: hard and fast, and so wild it hurts.

Finally, in lieu of anything else, Tripitaka just says, “I’m sorry.”

And she looks up at her like she has never meant anything more seriously in her life. Like she has never wanted anything more than she wants Sandy to see her and hear her and believe in her again.

And a part of Sandy wants that too, more than she can put into words. Being upset is exhausting, being angry more so, and she does not have the strength to sustain either of those things as well as she might like. But it’s safe, anger, and it is what she desperately needs to feel.

“Please stop,” she says, sounding small and urgent. “Stop apologising. Stop telling me how sorry you are. Stop making me want to...”

Stops. Clenches her teeth until her jaw starts to ache, and focuses as hard as she can on the dull pulsing pain, the tension that throbs and spreads through her neck, her shoulders. Easier than the other pains, the one in her head, the one in her chest, the one that makes her ears ring and her vision go white and black and red, the one that makes her blink and blink and blink until her cheeks and eyelashes are wet.

Tripitaka, for once, doesn’t try to touch her. But she says her name again, with such devastating compassion that she might as well have done, that the word somehow feels like a blow to the ribs and a tender embrace at the same time.

“Sandy.” It hurts, but it also stops the hurt; it strangles and it soothes, and Sandy doesn’t know which of those things she wants more. “Sandy, I know you’re upset. You have every right to be. But the Shaman is right: you can’t survive this all on your own.” Her hand hovers in the space between them, fingertips trembling, so close to Sandy’s face, as close as she can get without contact, close enough that she could draw some of the tears away if she chose. “You’re more _her_ than _you_.”

Sandy knows that’s true. She can feel it shaking in her bones, sticking to her eyelashes, to her cheeks, to the empty space between her ribs. Can feel it in the way she wants to feel hurt and upset and angry but only feels frightened and vulnerable and devastatingly weak.

“Don’t need you to tell me that,” she says. “I know what I am. What she is. Her tears, her rain. Her...” She chokes on the word, rancid and sour, at the back of her mouth, a foul taste she’ll never be able to digest. “Her _fear_.”

Tripitaka blinks.

And then her eyes grow very wide.

“Oh,” she breathes. “I understand.”

And her hand reaches out, seemingly of its own accord, fingers flexing into the tiny, barely-there space between them. Close enough to make contact, close enough to find the skin, to—

Sandy flinches. “Don’t _touch_ me.”

And the look on Tripitaka’s face, harrowed and haunted but shaded with relief, says she understands even better now.

Sandy pulls away, shrinking her body down as small as it can get, and sits down on the cold, rain-wet ground. Right there in the middle of the street, unaware of anything around her; she could be knocked down by a passing cart or by passing children, and she wouldn’t know or care until the last of her breath spilled out into the cracks in the pavement.

Better that way, she thinks. Better to be empty of thought and breath both, better to be numb and cold, better to be lost to the cracks in the ground than the cracks in her head. Better than being in pain, at least. Better than trying to convince herself she’s angry and upset when in truth she’s just scared and sad and small.

She closes her eyes. Hugs her knees to her chest, and pretends none of this ever happened. Pretends she’s the way she was, wild and feral and hungry, alone in her sewer, scribbling her thoughts into her journal as quickly as she can before they all fly away.

“Monica was right,” she mumbles at her knees. “You’re not the one I should be angry with. Him. He...”

Tripitaka sighs; it’s no real comfort, Sandy can tell, knowing that she’s not the worst in all of this. “Yeah.”

“He’s the one who knew what happened.” Speaking to herself now, mostly. Has to, or else she’ll fall apart. “Even back when this started. He knew what was happening to me, but he kept it to himself. Kept it secret, hid the truth, even though he knew I was confused and...”

Shakes her head. She can’t say the word, but she doesn’t flinch too much when Tripitaka says it for her: “Scared?”

Sandy nods, hating herself. “That, yes. He knew why, he knew everything. Or at least he _suspected_. But he tried to convince me I was intoxicated or tired or that I shouldn’t poke at old wounds. Said it made him uncomfortable. Suppose I know why now.” She sniffles, presses her face against the soaked leather of her clothes. “He tried everything he could think of to keep me from figuring it out, did everything he could to make sure I didn’t—”

Tripitaka’s breath catches in her chest, silencing her. She’s still standing when Sandy lifts her head, but her hands are clenched into fists at her sides, shaking with the effort of staying distant, of stopping herself from sitting down, embracing or touching or soothing her.

“Yeah,” she says, speaking carefully. “I mean, I understand it now. But I swear, Sandy, I didn’t know anything _then_. If I had...”

She shakes her head. Sandy inclines her head, accepting that small comfort as best she can while still upset.

“I know.” The word comes out wrong, as jagged and fractured as the rest of her. She sniffles again, then whimpers. “Should be angry at him, not you. I know that. He’s the one who knew what was happening, who chose to let me suffer rather than say anything that might incriminate him. Should be furious at him for that. Should hate him, even. But I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. I look at him and I try, but I can’t, I’m not, I—”

“You’re _her_ ,” Tripitaka whispers, sorrowful but soft with understanding. “And she’s too scared of him to feel anything else.”

Sandy lets out a sob. Only one, but it’s enough. The pressure on her chest eases slightly, just enough that she can keep going, that it doesn’t split her ribs apart to make the words.

“I have to be angry,” she whispers. “Need to be angry. Even if I...”

 _Even if I can only be angry at the wrong person_.

Tripitaka doesn’t say it. Doesn’t have to. She understands.

Just as she always does. Just as she always has.

She crouches, keeping her distance, then looks Sandy in the eye and says, “Can I sit down?”

Sandy blinks. “If you like. The ground doesn’t belong to me.”

Tripitaka chuckles, but doesn’t say anything. No point to it; Sandy knows what she was really asking, knows that she’s trying to be considerate, to show respect for her personal space. She wonders if Tripitaka knows too that it doesn’t matter, that she’s taken away the choice simply by asking the question; Sandy couldn’t deny her anything she asked, even if she wanted to with every fibre of her being.

If Tripitaka does realise that, it still doesn’t stop her taking the response as an invitation. She sits down beside her, visibly uncomfortable but trying, and Sandy has to bite down on her tongue to keep from running away, to swallow the claustrophobia that rises up inside of her, so overwhelming that for a moment she’s almost blinded by it.

Finally, when she’s settled, Tripitaka says, “He didn’t do it to hurt you.”

“You said you don’t know what he did.” She’s looking at her knees, keeping her eyes unfocused, trying as hard as she can to avoid seeing anything. “Said you didn’t want to assume—”

“Not that.” She grimaces, voice rising with a touch of frustration. “Not then. _Now_. Staying silent, keeping his secrets, trying to stop us from figuring out what was happening. He did it to protect himself. And I know he shouldn’t have, but it wasn’t... at least, I don’t think he did any of that to hurt you. I don’t think he expected it to.”

Sandy looks up. Meets her eye, frowning and sniffling, trying so hard to understand. “How could he possibly believe it wouldn’t?”

“I guess it was easier than letting himself see the truth.” She shrugs; though their bodies aren’t quite touching, Sandy feels the rustle of her robes like a warning, like the threat of rain. “Isn’t that what you said at the North Water? People believe what they want to.”

Sandy bristles a little, though she can’t say why. “Suppose.”

“He didn’t want to hurt you. He just... didn’t want to hurt himself more.”

Succinct, if a little calloused. Sandy grunts her approval. “He always did put self-preservation above empathy. Don’t see why this would be any different.”

“He’s still learning,” Tripitaka reminds her, with rather more kindness than Sandy thinks he deserves. But then, she’s still a little bit angry with Tripitaka as well, so perhaps she thinks that by defending him she’ll also defend herself. “He’s not like you or Monkey. You’re good people, both of you, all the way down to your bones. I mean, sure, Monkey can be a little arrogant sometimes, and you’re a little... uh...”

“Mad?”

Said without emotion. She’s been called far worse, and the word no longer carries any real meaning for her. It does to Tripitaka, though; she recoils sharply and shakes her head.

“Not... I wouldn’t say that, no. But that’s not...” She sighs tiredly. “My point is, whatever life throws at you, you’re still good at heart. Both of you. Monkey spent five hundred years imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, and you...”

She trails off, uncomfortable. Sandy, feeling rather less so for once, merely shakes her head. “Spent my life underground, hiding from the world and all the people in it. Yes?”

“Yeah.” Tripitaka nods sadly. “Your lives, your experiences... they tried so hard to make you into something awful, but it wasn’t enough. Not for him, not for you. But Pigsy, he’s not like you or Monkey. He doesn’t have your courage or your resilience, or your...” It seems to take her a moment to find the right word; when she does, she whispers it like a prayer. “Your _strength_.”

Sandy musters a hoarse, tremulous laugh. Strong is about the last thing she feels right now, and more so than ever with Tripitaka sitting so close to her, with the need to be angry clashing against the parts of her that are so weak, the conflicting urges to push her away and call her a liar and then pull her in close and bury her face in her robes and cry and cry and cry, until her younger self swallows them both whole.

“Different for him.” Even just saying it hurts; to actually feel it is too much to endure. “I know. Different life, different world, different experience. No pain in his past, only poor choices.”

Tripitaka chews her lip. “I don’t know if that’s really true,” she says slowly. “But it’s harder for someone who doesn’t... who doesn’t understand pain as intimately as you or Monkey. It takes more courage to face it when it’s new and frightening, and he never had much of that to begin with.” She sighs; though it’s nothing they don’t know already, it’s still a hard truth to face. “He tries, he does. But he has a longer way to go.”

“I know.” Doesn’t like to admit it, but she does. Perhaps better than Tripitaka, in truth. “Shouldn’t bother me, anyway. I fought him for many years, him and Locke. I’ve always known what they did to other gods. Saw it many, many times over the years.” Her chest feels tight, ribs pressing on her lungs; if she stops for even a moment she’s sure she’ll start sobbing. “Don’t know why it makes a difference finding out they might have done it to me too.”

“Of course it makes a difference,” Tripitaka says. Soft but intense, like she can’t believe this needs saying. That is so often true, Sandy thinks, of things she can’t comprehend. “He’s your friend. You’ve shared campfires with him, you’ve guarded his back, fought by his side, played word games, argued. He taught you how to cook—”

“He _tried_.”

And they both try, and fail, to summon a laugh.

“He’s your friend,” Tripitaka says again, softer.

This time, when she reaches for her, Sandy doesn’t flinch or pull away. She doesn’t lean into the contact, either, but she lets it happen, a warm hand on her arm, tethering, anchoring.

“I know he’s changed,” Sandy says. “I know there’s no difference, me or any of the others. Better, maybe, than most of them. Whatever he did to me, I’m still alive. More than can be said for many.”

Tripitaka makes a broken sound, looks away. “I...”

“Yes. Awful. But we’ve forgiven him for that, yes?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, doesn’t need or expect one. “So why is it so hard to forgive him for this?”

Tripitaka doesn’t say anything. Maybe she doesn’t know what she should say, maybe she’s trying to think of the most diplomatic way to voice her feelings; either way, the silence stretches out, makes the non-existent space between them feel so much vaster than it is. Makes it easier for Sandy to breathe, even through the contact, the closeness, the warmth she still wants so badly to reject.

She feels unsteady. Feels wrong, both inside and outside. Feels like she’s acknowledging some terrible weakness in herself by allowing Tripitaka to sit so close, to touch her, to tether her, to be all the things she was so sure she didn’t need. Feels like she’s silently accepting what the Shaman told her, what they’ve all been telling her: that she is not well and she is not strong, that she is still too damaged, too _broken_ to endure this all on her own.

She wants to cry. Wants to—

No.

 _She_ wants to cry. The other her, the one who is young and small and frightened, the one who can’t put two words together without bringing down a flood of tears and torrential rain.

Sandy doesn’t want to cry. She doesn’t want to be upset or scared or broken. She wants to be angry. She wants to be violent. She wants to feel the way Monkey felt about Davari.

But she can’t.

Not now.

Because she is _her_ , and _she_ is her.

She pulls away from Tripitaka’s touch, leans away from her body. Lurches up to her feet and stands there for a moment. Catches her balance, stares up at the sky. Wills the clouds to heed her call.

The rain doesn’t come this time, though. Nothing left, not in the cloud or in herself; she feels her powers still thrumming under her skin, but they’re drained and tired just like the rest of her, worn down from feeling too much, from trying to do too much all at once. Her younger self could bring rain for days and days, oceans of water as deep as her tears, but she is grown now and broken inside, and exhaustion comes so much more swiftly than she remembers.

Still sitting on the ground, Tripitaka says, “It’s not over.”

Sandy blinks. It takes a moment for her eyes to focus again, and her head feels heavy when she looks down. “What?”

“What you’re going through.” She sounds sad, looks sadder. “You’re only partly yourself right now. There’s less of you that’s really _you_ than there was when we left the Jade Mountain.”

“Yes.” She swallows down a wave of rising nausea, or maybe rising panic. “Yes, I know that.”

“And you don’t really know what happened to you. All you have is what we’ve seen already and the idea that Pigsy might have been involved somehow. We don’t know what actually...” She blanches, seemingly unable to finish. “We don’t know enough.”

It is an odd kind of comfort, feeling the anger surge in her chest again. “I do.”

“No.”

And then Tripitaka is standing again, and touching her again, and Sandy wants to flinch and pull back, wants to lash out and shout, wants to direct that anger onto the one person she can still look in the eye, but the fight goes out of her at the very first press of Tripitaka’s fingers to the back of her hand. Always has, probably always will.

“Don’t touch me,” she whines, but the words don’t make it out of her throat and Tripitaka doesn’t heed them at all.

“Sandy.” Said with so much patience, so much affection; Sandy wishes she could hate it. “We’re only part of the way there. Your memories and your mind are still in pieces, and they will be until you’ve got the whole picture. You can’t make peace with it — with any of it — until everything is where it should be. Until you know what happened, until your mind is healed and can process things properly. Until you’re _yourself_ again.”

Sandy shakes her head. Desperate now, she feels slightly feverish.

“I know.” Her breathing is very shallow. “I know that, Tripitaka.”

“Yeah.” She squeezes her hand, so hard that her knuckles crack, so hard that the physical pain draws Sandy’s attention away from the ache in her head and the shivering in her bones. “And I know you’re afraid. I know _she’s_ afraid. Who wouldn’t be? It’s terrifying. But that’s all the more reason to...”

_To let me in, to let me touch you, to let me be your anchor again._

She doesn’t say any of those things, though. She doesn’t need to.

Sandy looks down at her hand, at their hands, entwined so tightly it hurts, and she thinks about how desperately she wants to be angry, how desperately she wants to resent Tripitaka, to feel betrayed and hurt like she did at the North Water, to feel lost and alone like the half-drowned little girl who walked all the way to Palawa from the middle of nowhere, who showed up behind Monica’s tavern, who found her way, as if by fate, to the corner of the world that would break her and teach her how to thrive and do both of those things at the same time.

“It hurts,” she says.

“I know,” Tripitaka whispers. “I know. But—”

“No.” She swallows. Closes her eyes. “Not just me. I mean, it hurts _you_. The Scholar...”

Tripitaka’s hand goes still, freezing over her knuckles. She swallows a couple of times, like she’s trying to find her voice, but when she speaks again she sounds strong and brave and doesn’t falter at all.

“That’s my pain to bear, Sandy.” Clear, steady. “You have enough to deal with. You don’t need to worry about my grief as well. You shouldn’t...” The slightest tremor, swiftly smothered. “You shouldn’t have to think of me at all.”

“But I do.” Why is her voice breaking when the pain isn’t hers? Why is she the one faltering and flinching and floundering when the hurt belongs to someone else? “Even when you betray me, Tripitaka. Even when you keep secrets from me or turn your back on me or abandon me. I’ve spent over half my life thinking of you. How can you expect me to stop now?”

When she dares to look down, she finds Tripitaka staring up at her with wide eyes, a little pale, a little thrown. Not upset but not happy either, like she’s been struck by something both brutal and beautiful, something she does and doesn’t want. It is nothing she doesn’t already know, of course, nothing she’s not rejected a hundred times before, but there is an intimacy in them now that is new.

It is the way Sandy sensed Tripitaka’s grief over the Scholar, the way she can still feel its echo inside herself as well, the sorrow in her chest that doesn’t belong to her. It is the way Tripitaka has peered into Sandy’s past, into her mind and her heart and her hidden places, the way she knows things about her that Sandy doesn’t even know about herself. They’re connected now, by magic and by memory, by something intangible and impossibly powerful.

Sandy closes her eyes. Breathes as best she can. Trembles, not like the child she feels clawing in her mind but like the god she became later, the god she was for all those lonely years, the god who heard the name _Tripitaka_ , at long last, in the dark dank depths of her sewer, who fell to her knees in reverence and trembled.

“I don’t want you to be my anchor,” she says, as quiet as she can. “Don’t want you to hurt me. Don’t want you to hurt _for_ me.” And she opens her eyes again and the world looks like it’s on fire. “Don’t want any more hurting. Yours or mine, I can’t, I… don’t you understand?”

Tripitaka sighs. It’s a heavy, potent sound, and it makes the air grow heavier around them both. She wonders, idle and maybe a little mad, if there is god’s blood somewhere in Tripitaka’s family history; sometimes it seems that’s the only explanation for the way she makes the world bend around her, the way everything seems to transform, becoming heavy or light, hard or soft in harmony with her mood.

“Sandy,” she says, and somehow it’s both at once, hard and soft, heavy and light. “I’m not the one who doesn’t understand.”

“What?”

Tripitaka sighs. “The pain I felt when I saw the Scholar... it’s not the same as the pain you feel when you see your younger self. It’s different, it’s not...” She sighs again, and this time the breath is coupled with contact, with a hand over Sandy’s cheek, reaching beyond her height, damp-eyed with longing. “It’s not a _bad_ kind of pain.”

Apparently, she was correct: Sandy does not understand.

“All pain is bad.” She frowns, but lets the contact linger, lets her expression shift to better contain Tripitaka’s touch. “Surely this is a universal truth.”

“It...” There’s a glimmer of frustration in her, not really directed at Sandy. “It’s not that simple. Certain types of pain... sometimes it can be healing.”

“Hurting doesn’t heal.” She’s not trying to be difficult, but she truly can’t fathom the difference, the nuance that Tripitaka seems to believe is there. “It hurts. That’s why it’s called hurting.”

Tripitaka chuckles, though it doesn’t sound especially mirthful. “I know that, Sandy, yes. But it’s not always...” She exhales shakily, takes a moment, then tries again. “I know it’s difficult for you to grasp. You’ve never been through that kind of loss. You’ve never had someone who...”

“...who cared about me?”

Tripitaka looks slightly wounded; Sandy’s aching heart knows that feeling very well. Still, she doesn’t flinch, and her hand grows, if possible, even gentler against her skin.

“Someone who was _taken_ from you.”

It doesn’t sting any less. “True enough. People always leave me by choice.”

“I know,” Tripitaka says softly, and takes her hand back. Sandy’s skin grows cold; she tells herself it doesn’t miss the contact. “What I mean is that you’ve never lost someone who mattered to you. You’ve never been bereaved, left wanting more, wishing you could see their face or touch them again, wishing you could hold them close one last time, just to imagine they were still with you.”

“True.” The word doesn’t come any easier a second time. “I was abandoned and then I was alone, and now I’m broken. Very little love to speak of. Still less that I’d care to remember.”

Tripitaka nods sadly. “Yeah, I know. But it’s not...” She pauses, wetting her lips, as though trying to figure out how best to phrase something so delicate. “When you lose someone you care about, someone who cared for you too... it’s not just bitter, Sandy, it’s sweet as well. You mourn them, you grieve them, you miss them. You ache for them with everything in you, and yes, it _hurts_... but when you think about them, when you remember them, it makes even the darkest places light up.”

The explanation doesn’t help, of course. Tripitaka is like a poet with her words sometimes, but even she can’t work miracles; Sandy will never understand an experience so foreign, so utterly unfathomable. 

So, instead of pressing further, she simply sighs and says, “As you say, Tripitaka.”

“It hurt to see him again,” Tripitaka goes on, lost in her own reverie, as though Sandy is no longer there. “It hurt a lot. But it was...” Her voice breaks. “It was a gift too, a precious, beautiful one. A piece of his life I didn’t know about, and a part of his story I never imagined I’d share. I wouldn’t trade the pain I felt for anything else in the world.”

Sandy feels a twist in her stomach, a kick in her chest. Hard to know for sure whether the sensation is hers, or simply another echo of Tripitaka’s complex, intricate pain. The uncertainty makes her dizzy.

“I wish I could trade my pain for yours,” she whispers, and immediately feels awful. “No. No, I didn’t mean that. I don’t...” She turns away with her whole body, horrified, choking on the instinct to run and hide. “I’m sorry, Tripitaka, I don’t know why I...”

“It’s okay.” Tripitaka’s fingertips graze her sleeve, then fall away. “It’s all right.”

“Is it?” Off Tripitaka’s nod, shaky but sincere, she tries to catch her breath. “I don’t know anything any more.”

She feels heavy all over, pushed down by the weight of so many different feelings, of pain and fear and anger, of the way it all twists and turns and tries to pull her in a hundred different directions. She can barely keep track any more of what she feels for whom, of who she can bear to look in the eye and who makes her want to cry or hide. She wants to wrap her cloak around herself and run, only she knows it would be pointless; even she, fast as she is, can’t outrun the monsters in her own head.

Tripitaka watches her, quiet and thoughtful. Then, after a long, quiet moment, she takes her hand, as gentle as the air before a storm, and says, “We should probably go back inside.”

Just the thought of it makes Sandy shudder. “No,” she says, hoarse with a fear that still wants so badly to be anger. “Not again. Can’t face him, can’t face the inside of my head. Can’t...”

She trails off, shaking her head. Incoherent and worthless, but apparently it’s enough for Tripitaka to understand because she doesn’t try to press or push her at all. Just nods, sighs, and says, “I suppose we’re all too tired to do much more today anyway.”

It’s terribly thoughtful, coming up with such a feeble excuse to help her save face. Sandy lacks the dignity to be anything other than grateful.

“Want to be by myself,” she mumbles. “Outside. No walls, no people, nothing to hurt me.” She doesn’t want to admit that she still feels small and scared, that being inside the tavern or the palace feels like being locked up in a prison cell, all hopes of escape cut off. “Want to stay out here. Alone.”

Emphatic, pointed. She doesn’t need to look at Tripitaka’s face to know she disagrees. “Sandy...”

“I know.” Doesn’t have to like it, though, and doesn’t have to pretend she does either. “The Shaman won’t let that happen. Being alone. Like I’m some sort of invalid who wouldn’t survive for an hour without supervision.” She growls a little, makes it quite clear what she thinks of that, even as she knows it’s likely a fair point. “And I’m sure Monica would _tsk_ and tell me I’m being foolish. And I expect you...”

Trails off, flushing and embarrassed. A thousand times worse now because she’s not angry any more, because she can’t even try to be angry. Tripitaka is looking at her steadily, sort of smiling a little bit, like maybe she knows what she’s thinking, like she understands in a way Sandy doesn’t how it’s possible for anger and pain to twist so effortlessly into something else, how she can go from not wanting to be touched, from flinching and baring her teeth at the idea of it, to feeling empty and hollowed out, and frightened when Tripitaka takes her hand away.

“Yeah.” Affirmation, confession, a hundred other things. “I don’t want to leave you alone either.”

The world sort of lurches at that, tilting sideways. Sandy blinks, struggles to steady herself; she doesn’t know why it feels like a revelation, why it feels so vast.

“I... oh, um...”

And she feels even more ashamed, and even more desperate for something to hold on to.

As though sensing her need for contact, Tripitaka reaches for her again. Wraps her fingers around Sandy’s wrist and holds on so tight that Sandy wonders if she’s making sure she still has a pulse.

“I know you’re still angry at me,” she says. “At least, I know you’re still _trying_ to be angry at me. But I do want to be your anchor. I want to...”

And she pulls her in closer and holds her tighter, and Sandy feels like she’s drowning, the way she felt all those years ago when she didn’t know she couldn’t drown, like she’s _waiting_ to drown. And she doesn’t know if she wants the contact or not — at least, she doesn’t want to want it, the closeness and the unwilling comfort it brings — but Tripitaka is so strong for someone so small, and every breath she takes is a shudder shot through with grief and pain, but it sounds and looks and tastes nothing like Sandy’s. It is soft but strong like her body, sweet like her voice, kind and brimming with warmth like her eyes.

How is she supposed to resist that? She is exhausted and upset and terrified beyond words, and she cannot, she—

She closes her eyes. Breathes as slowly as she dares, slow enough that a part of her hopes it will stop entirely.

“I don’t know that you _can_ anchor me,” she admits. “Not through this. Not while I’m feeling this way. But I...” And despite her best efforts to slow it down, her breathing halts and makes her stammer, stutter, makes the words grow sharp and urgent and _true_. “I feel so untethered. So unsafe. And even when I’m angry with you, even when you hurt me horribly... still, I think I need you.”

Tripitaka leans in, rests her forehead against Sandy’s shoulder.

“I know,” she says, with regret. “I wish you didn’t have to.”

For perhaps the first time since they met, Sandy thinks, _so do I_.

*

Tripitaka goes back inside to talk to the others.

Sandy stays where she is, outside in the cool, fresh air, looking up at the sky. 

She doesn’t want to go back in there, not even for a moment, and she definitely doesn’t want to hear what they have to say about her. Doesn’t want to see their faces, doesn’t want to feel their eyes on her or sense the shift in the air when their voices get hushed and strained and sympathetic, doesn’t want to feel their feelings, to be pressed down by their weight and power.

She wants to shut off every part of herself, at least every part that is able to connect to the world outside, and she can’t do that if she’s surrounded by people, looking at her and talking to her and being so overwhelmingly present.

So she stays outside. Alone, watching the sky and wishing the clouds could descend and carry her away, save her the way Monkey’s cloud saved him and Tripitaka at the Jade Mountain.

Alas, they do not. But then, what did she expect? She never claimed to have half as much power as Monkey, even if she does hold more affection for the weather.

When she re-emerges, a few minutes later, Tripitaka has her arms full of food and blankets and a sober look on her face.

“The Shaman said to be careful,” she says, without preamble. “He said to listen to your mind and your body, and to find him if anything feels off. Even if you think it’s nothing. He says...” She glances back at the door as it clicks shut behind her, and when she turns back her eyes are clear and warm. “He says if you want him to induce another trance, you only have to ask.”

Sandy blinks her disbelief. “Generous of him. I know it wasn’t easy the last time, or pleasant.”

“I told him it probably wouldn’t be necessary.” Tripitaka is smiling now, visibly more relaxed; whatever else the Shaman said, he must have done something to set her mind at ease, at least a little. “And I thanked him for you.”

Sandy bows her head, earnestly grateful, then musters a parchment-thin smile. “I suppose Monkey wasn’t impressed?”

“He seemed... surprised.” Tripitaka chuckles, unable to mask her fondness. “You know, I think the Shaman is starting to grow on him.”

Sandy keeps her feelings on that particular subject to herself. The smile stays with her for a moment longer, though, before misery and exhaustion finally chase it away, and that speaks volumes in itself.

She turns her attention to more pleasant things, the first distraction she can find: namely, the bundle in Tripitaka’s arms. She studies it thoughtfully, takes in the wafting aroma of baked bread and warm blankets; it strikes her on a physical level, the scent, makes her think of long-buried moments, moments seen through Monica’s eyes and still only half-formed in her own. It makes her want to cry, but at the same time it awakens in her the strongest feeling of being _safe_.

That scent does more to chase away her fear than even Tripitaka’s hands or voice or eyes, than even _Tripitaka_. It makes her feel safer than anything her adult self has ever known.

Her eyes are stinging when she tears them away. “Monica’s idea?”

Tripitaka shrugs. “She doesn’t want us catching a chill,” she says. “I think she was mostly talking about me. You...” She sighs, eyes on Sandy’s chest, her throat. “I don’t know.”

Sandy nods, understanding. She follows the line of Tripitaka’s gaze with her fingertips, touching her chest and the memory of razor-wire pain in her lungs. It’s been a while since she felt it there, the phantom pain of a memory that won’t die; it’s still inside of her, raw and crude, but that’s all it is, an echo of a time so far gone it might as well have been another world entirely. She doesn’t get ill very often now, and when she does it’s usually very brief.

In truth, Monica had the right of it, though Sandy had no way of knowing that in the moments when it mattered. Growing up in the dank and the dirt, with her memory and her mind in pieces, how could she possibly have recalled the advice of a woman whose face she didn’t know? She was ill many times as she grew, countless awful sicknesses brought on by her living conditions, but once her body and her power reached maturity, it came to a natural end. The fortitude of a god, not that she thought much about it at the time.

Monica had the right of many things, she realises sadly, and so did the Scholar. Such a shame she couldn’t remember enough to draw comfort from their words when she actually needed them.

“I’m glad she worries about you,” she says to Tripitaka, dragging herself back to the present, to the people who care about her now, the people she does remember. “Someone should. You...”

But Tripitaka doesn’t let her finish. Can’t stop her, exactly, not with her arms full, but she pushes past her like a woman on a mission, like she doesn’t have time to listen to this. Hard not to feel stung, rejected, but Sandy swallows the feeling down; she is so full of so many things right now, there’s scarcely any room for something so petty.

“Where do you want to go?” Tripitaka asks. Her voice sounds a little hollow now, like she’s trying to push down some unwanted thoughts of her own. “Not the tavern. Not the palace. You really want to spend the night outside?”

Sandy nods. Doesn’t even need to think about it. “Fresh air. Rain, maybe. Freedom.”

The last is the only important part, of course. No walls, nothing but open space in whichever direction she wants — or needs — to run. The thought of it makes her knees weak with relief.

Tripitaka sighs. “You know it’s going to be cold, right?”

“The cold never bothered you on the road,” Sandy points out huffily. “Or was that just bravado so Monkey wouldn’t think you’re a weak and feeble human?”

“...touché.”

Sandy definitely does not smirk.

“You don’t have to stay with me, you know,” she says, though they both know that’s not true. “But yes. This is where I want to be. Somewhere I won’t feel cornered. Somewhere I know but not too well. The palace is unpleasant. Echoes of _them_ and the things they did. Can’t see it without wondering what they remember that I don’t. And the tavern...” She shudders. “Too close to places I can’t reach. Too familiar to my... to that part of me. Don’t want that. Couldn’t bear it right now. Couldn’t bear to feel so much.”

She shakes her head, sighing frustration. It’s too hard to put into words, and all the more so for someone so terrible at speaking in the first place.

There is so much here. This village, the places there. So much she doesn’t know, so much she still _feels_ , even without understanding where those feelings come from. Monica’s tavern, Locke’s palace, they make her hurt in so many ways, more and more as this nightmare goes on. She feels unsafe, she feels trapped and frightened, she can no longer look at the people she cares about and not feel a dozen shades of pain.

“I get it,” Tripitaka says softly. “I mean, I still think it’s freezing out here. And it’s probably going to rain again, so that’ll be fun.” Her expression softens, cushioning the blow. “But... yeah, I get it.”

And she shifts the bundle in her arms, frees up a hand and touches Sandy’s hip.

It is startlingly intimate; she usually takes care to touch safer places, her hand or her arm, maybe a shoulder, but this closeness feels different, almost protective, a sort of power thrumming across the point of contact. Sandy shivers, reaching instinctively to take the bundle of blankets. She tells herself it’s to ease the burden for Tripitaka and not because she needs something to occupy her hands, to hide the fact that they’re shaking. She’s not sure she convinces either of them.

They wander through the town for a short while, pacing from one end to the other and back again. Sandy is restless, agitated; being outside doesn’t feel as freeing or comforting as she hoped it would. Probably shouldn’t surprise her, that; before Tripitaka came to her sewer, the world outside was almost more terrifying than the inside of a prison cell. She was far more scared of open spaces — the noise, the people, the light — than she was of being trapped. Strange, yes... but then, as far as she knew, so was she.

Tripitaka doesn’t doesn’t do or say anything, and if she notices Sandy’s agitation she’s careful not to let it show. She keeps quiet, keeps pace with her, lets her do as she wants, like she knows she’ll wear herself out before too long. Like she sees nothing more in her than an over-tired child.

Not completely inaccurate, in truth, though Sandy wouldn’t thank her for saying so.

She stops, finally, just beyond the village gates. The walls are a little higher than she remembers, rough stone grating against her shoulders when she leans back against it. Still walls, but they’re made to keep her out, not in. Walls to lean on, to keep her apart from the place that was her home for so many years.

Tripitaka doesn’t question her. Doesn’t ask if she’s sure, if she really wants to sleep on the wrong side of the gate, outside the relative sanctuary of the village. No doubt she already knows the answer: if the choice was hers to make, Sandy would be on the other side of the continent by now, much less the gate, and still running. 

Can’t do that now, though. Not with her mind still in pieces. So this will have to do.

They eat as the sun goes down. The bread is still warm — Sandy suspects Monica had it made in advance, anticipating something like this would happen — and it has a wholesome, homely sort of taste; eating it, Sandy’s head goes quiet.

She doesn’t have much of an appetite, but the routine is sort of comforting, and in any case Tripitaka is looking at her with a sad sort of expectancy, like she thinks she’ll starve to death if she skips a meal. A fair point, maybe; no denying she needs a little nourishment after the misery of the journey, but still the unwanted focus makes her feel uneasy. Like she’s being watched, studied, examined. Like she has to put her guard up.

“Tripitaka,” she says when it becomes too much. Head bowed, speaking with a full mouth, like she’s trying to repel her. “Wouldn’t you rather watch the sunset than me?”

“I’ve seen plenty of sunsets,” Tripitaka says, low but without hesitation. “But you, like this...”

Sandy tries to laugh, but her throat is dry and full of bread she suddenly can’t seem to swallow. “It’s not particularly flattering.”

“I...” Tripitaka sighs a little sadly, then shakes her head. “No, I suppose it’s not.”

Sandy snorts. Amused, sort of, but also sort of not. “ _Now_ you decide it’s best to tell the truth?”

She knows it’s the wrong thing to say almost before the words are fully out, but she can’t seem to stop herself. There is a sharp edge to her voice, raspy and serrated, and it makes Tripitaka sit up a little straighter, makes her eyes grow hard and her whole body go tense. She sets aside the remains of her meal, stares at Sandy like maybe she’s waiting for her to take it back, to hang her head and mumble a sad little apology.

She’ll be waiting a while, Sandy thinks, and squares her shoulders.

Tripitaka frowns. The softness of the moment vanishes. “I thought we were...”

“We were.” Sandy bites down on her tongue, silently cursing her clumsiness. “I mean, we are. But you still kept the truth hidden from me. And that still...”

She won’t say ‘hurts’. Won’t say it _again_.

The word already has too much power over her, and making it into another conversation will only ensure that power grows. She has never been bested by her pain before, even at its very worst, and she will not be defeated by it now. Even if it is currently wearing Tripitaka’s face.

“I understand that,” Tripitaka says softly. Patient and defensive at the same time, her voice pitches sharply like it doesn’t know how it wants to sound. “But I don’t know what else I can do. I can’t go back and change things, I can’t do it differently. And I don’t even know if it would be a good idea, even if I could. You heard the Shaman.”

“Yes. ‘Bad to know too much’.” She’s run those words over in her head many times since he first told her, his demand for purity acting as a lifeline and a unfathomable burden all at once. “Even if it feels so much worse to know too little.”

Tripitaka’s shoulders lose a little of their tension. “Yeah.”

Sandy finally manages to choke down the chunk of bread stuck in her throat; feeling drained, she sets the rest aside with Tripitaka’s. One day, perhaps, she will remember how it feels to be hungry, but for now it’s as far out of reach as her sanity; she needs to shut her eyes for a few moments just to try and settle her stomach.

“You know more about me than I do,” she sighs. “Even when you know almost nothing, you still know more than me.”

Tripitaka doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that, and for a little while she doesn’t try. Just gazes into the middle distance, eyes hazy and losing their focus, like she doesn’t want to look away but doesn’t really want to look at her either. Sandy doesn’t know how to feel about the evasion; it is always an unpleasant thing, being watched and stared at, but Tripitaka does things with her eyes that no-one else ever has. Comfort and discomfort all at once, and when her insides squirm under Tripitaka’s scrutiny she can never quite figure out if she feels sick or if it’s just sickly-sweet.

She doesn’t have time to ponder it. After a quiet, uncomfortable beat, Tripitaka says, “It doesn’t matter.”

Then she turns away completely, watching the sun as it streaks the horizon with orange and red. Sandy watches her watching it, feeling the weight of the gathering dark like a shroud, more comforting than perhaps it should be.

“Apparently,” she muses aloud, “the sunset is a more appealing sight after all.”

Tripitaka bristles. “Sandy.”

“Inappropriate again?” She sighs. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. But Sandy...” She takes a deep, steadying breath, but still doesn’t look at her. “I could know every detail of your life, every moment, every word, and I still wouldn’t know you like you think I do.” Her hands twist in her lap, like she’s trying to control a swell of something inexpressibly powerful. “From the moment we first met, you’ve looked at me like I’m something more than human, like you expect me to somehow have all the answers to all your questions, even the ones you haven’t asked. But I _don’t_. I can’t. I’m not... I’m human. I’m fallible and I’m human and I’m never going to be what you think I am.”

Sandy brings her knees up to her chest, hugs them hard and rests her chin on them. Thinks for a long, long time, then says, “You say that like you... like you think I see you as a miracle.”

“That’s how you look at me,” Tripitaka says, without accusation and without softness too. “Like you think I can save the whole world, and you, all on my own. Like every time I falter, every time I let you down, another piece of your world gets shattered.”

Sandy stares at her. “That...” Her throat is very dry; she can’t seem to swallow. “That would be absurd.”

“Yeah, it would.” Tripitaka grimaces. “I’m human, Sandy. I’m not a god, I’m not a demon, I’m not even a real monk. I’m just a girl who ended up in a situation she wasn’t prepared for. That’s all. And sometimes I’m gullible and believe the people I shouldn’t and ignore the people I should be listening to. Sometimes I make bad decisions and we all pay for it.”

Sandy bites her tongue until it hurts. “The North Water.”

Tripitaka nods. “Sometimes I make the wrong choice. I admit that. But sometimes…” Her voice cracks. “Sandy, sometimes there is no _right_ one.”

Sandy turns her head, presses her face against her legs until they black out her vision completely. “You’re talking about now.”

“Yeah." A chuckle, probably well deserved. “There was no right choice with this, okay? If I’d told you what I suspected and gotten it wrong, or if I’d tried to talk to Pigsy about it and he’d shut down or gotten angry, it would only have caused you even more pain.” A low, frustrated sound. Sandy hugs her legs a little harder to keep from looking up at her. “Whichever path I took, it was always going to end here.”

Sandy knows what she’s trying to say. She understands, she truly does, that from Tripitaka’s perspective there was no easy way out of this, no way to reconcile what she suspected with what she had to wait and learn the hard way. She knows this, understands it... 

But what she hears, angry and wounded and vulnerable, is that she was doomed from the start.

“I was always going to suffer,” she says to her knees. “That’s what you really mean. That no matter what you did, no matter what any of us did, I was always going to end up this way.” Her shoulders are starting to shudder, her ribs squeezing her lungs until she can’t breathe, helpless as something desperate and overwhelming rises up inside her chest. “I didn’t do anything. I just _was_. And because of _what_ I was, you’re saying this was inevitable.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Her voice has gotten very, very low, tinged with sorrow and regret and shame. “But it’s not... you’re right. I wish you weren’t, but you are. You’re right, and it’s not fair, and I’m so sorry.”

Sandy makes a small noise, a whimper, maybe a sniffle. She doesn’t really know, but it’s the only sound she can make.

Tripitaka rests a hand on her back. Doesn’t move, just holds it there, palm flat across the jutting arc of her ribs. Still and steady, soothing, but Sandy doesn’t feel soothed at all. She feels small and weak, like the child she can barely remember, the one with all the memories and all the suffering and all the pain, the one who was neither mad nor broken. A child who just _was_.

Another sound wrenches out of her, just like the first. It’s not fear she’s feeling now, or even pain. It’s something different but so familiar, something cold and lost and—

 _Lonely_.

She turns, not just her head but her whole body, and she’s trying — at least, she thinks she’s trying — to pull away, to get out of reach, to put as much distance as she can between herself and Tripitaka’s soothing-but-not-soothing hands. But she twists in the wrong direction, and instead of _away_ she finds herself turning _towards_ her, turning _into_ her, pressing herself into her hands, her arms, into _her_ , all of her, everything—

Tripitaka makes a startled sort of sound, thrown for less than a fraction of a second, but then every part of her grows soft with empathy, with understanding. And her body yields, and she sort of throws open her arms like some part of her has been expecting this for a long, long time.

And Sandy wants to ask her how she could possibly have known, how she can still, even now, anticipate her every reaction even as she swears she doesn’t know anything.

And she wants to ask her so many other things, big and small, but her mouth and eyes are full of salt and she can’t see or say or do anything, can only cling to her like she’s the rail on a tossing boat, like she’s the only thing keeping her from drowning, can only hold on tight because it’s the one thing she was taught to do — _don’t drown, stay above the water, don’t drown_ — even when she yearns for it with every fibre of her being.

And somewhere above her, somewhere in the descending twilight, Tripitaka’s lips press kisses to her temples, to the part of her that throbs with endless headaches, that still carries the Shaman’s fingerprints, the mark of a demon trying to save a god. And it is such a strange, surreal sort of sensation, being kissed by a monk who isn’t a monk in the place that holds a demon’s power, and yet somehow it works, a kind of magic that isn’t real — that can’t be real — but it flows through her like it is, seeping in through the skin until she’s warmed all over.

And it is too much, the sensation and the not-magic, too much for a child inside a god’s body, too much for a god with a child’s mind, it is overwhelming, being held and cared for and—

And every part of her opens up and breaks apart, _shatters_ , until it’s not only her mind that is broken, until it’s not just her memory that is in pieces, until it is all of her, until she can’t—

Until, inevitably, she’s crying.

Back bowed, face buried in Tripitaka’s neck, she cries and cries and cries. Not like an abandoned child, not like a little girl learning that she might not be human, but like the god she became much later, the god who had forgotten what it was to cry at all, who couldn’t remember ever having been in someone’s arms like this, who hadn’t even spoken to another soul in years, who only knew how to communicate in blood and bones.

She cries like memory, like all the time that was stolen from her, torn out of her mind and trampled to pieces, like all the little pieces she is slowly, surely starting to take back. And she cries like someone who has never been touched or held or warmed like this, like someone who can only remember a life underground, rotting away below the surface, in the dark and cold, no company but the whispers of creatures that had no arms to hold her with.

And she cries like someone who is afraid, who doesn’t know what these things mean, how to be held and touched and warmed, who only knows what it feels like when all of those things are lost to her.

And Tripitaka, through all of this, holds her close and rocks her gently and presses kisses to her throbbing temples, to her aching, messy, broken mind.

And then, at last, when it’s all over, when Sandy is able to lift her head and look at her, Tripitaka leans back, brushes the salt from her face, and whispers, again, “I’m so, so sorry.”

It is not the first time she’s said this. It’s not even the first time in the last few minutes. And Sandy doubts it will be the last time she says it, either, before this nightmare is over.

And yet, for all that it is nothing new, still Sandy thinks that this time she might believe it.

*


	13. Chapter 13

*

They sleep together under the night sky.

Sort of sleep, anyway. 

Sandy still doesn’t want it, still resists it, body and mind, but there is a part of her that has all but given up by now, that can barely remember why she tried to fight it in the first place. A part that can’t help thinking, a little masochistic and a little spiteful, that her dark, troubled dreams clearly know more about herself than she does. A part that maybe wouldn’t mind waking up with her fingernails caught in someone’s skin, even her own.

In any case, she’s tired. Her eyes are sore, vision blurred and sockets all hollowed out from crying; she feels flooded on the inside, like the rain has gathered in her chest, and her head is so heavy she can barely hold it up.

So, then, sleep.

They lie down like usual, Tripitaka’s front pressed to her back, even closer than usual, like she’s trying to fend off the cold, seeking warmth from a body that has never held any in its life; Sandy doesn’t have the heart to tell her she’d be warmer on her own, swaddled in Monica’s blankets. She draws no comfort from the contact, not like she once did, but still she finds she doesn’t want to be without it.

She sleeps poorly, as ever, restless and frequently interrupted, but it’s still better than she would have fared in the palace or the tavern, or any other place that tastes too much of memory. 

Expected by now, she wakes several times in the night.

The first, she’s already on her hands and knees when she comes around, sore fingers scrabbling in the dirt, throat raw and head throbbing. Tripitaka’s hands are at her back and in her hair, and her voice is low and quiet in her ear; Sandy barely makes out a handful of sounds, senseless syllables echoing in the dark, and then she’s unconscious again, swimming in something far more pleasant than what she woke to.

The next time she wakes, it is with a little more clarity, jolted back to herself by the sound of muffled sobbing. For a moment she assumes the voice is her own — it usually is, after all — but as the groggy haze lifts she realises it’s not. Tripitaka, curled up beside her, is caught in the throes of what must be a horrible nightmare, whimpering and wailing in her sleep. Sandy’s heart stalls in her chest, stricken by the sight of her.

She doesn’t wake her, but she does what she can to soothe her in her dreams, wrapping her body around her as gracefully she can, long limbs pulling her in close and careful, murmuring comfort into her ear, trying desperately to be for Tripitaka what Tripitaka is for her. Untalented and clumsy, in this as she is in everything she does, but still she tries.

She’s not sure if it works, but Tripitaka grows quiet after a short time anyway, murmuring incoherently into the crook of Sandy’s neck, delirious and still mostly asleep; Sandy has no idea what she’s dreaming, and she doubts she’ll ever summon the courage to ask, but after yesterday’s bittersweet grief it doesn’t take a genius to guess that the Scholar is probably involved.

She doesn’t let go, even after Tripitaka falls into a quieter dream. She doesn’t want her to wake, delirious or not, and feel like she’s alone. No-one deserves to feel that way. No-one should—

And then it is morning, seemingly out of nowhere.

Sandy wakes, groggy and uncoordinated, to the bleary half-light of rising dawn. She’s sure she must have woken at least a couple more times in the night, because her eyes and head are heavy with the familiar weight of too many tears and not enough rest.

Tripitaka, seemingly awake for some time now, looks nearly as drained as Sandy feels, but there is nothing in her face to suggest she remembers any of her dreams. A comfort, most likely, to someone with little to lose and so much to gain by forgetting.

Sandy sits up, chasing away the bite of envy. Tripitaka rests a hand on her shoulder as she shifts, peering into her eyes as though trying to gauge her coherence. Her face is warm this morning, flushed and soft in the early morning light, and Sandy allows herself a moment to bask in the sight of her.

“Are you feeling better?” Tripitaka asks, after a quiet beat.

Sandy wets her lips, shakes off the remains of her grogginess. “No.”

“Oh.” A sigh, heavy and so, so tired. “What _do_ you feel?”

“Like I want to run away and hide.” Flat, toneless, at least as much as she can manage. She will be honest, no matter the cost. “Let my mind stay broken if it means not having to face _that_. Even if it kills me.”

“Sandy.” She swallows audibly, sounding parched. “Don’t do that. Please.”

“You asked. I answered.” But that doesn’t chase away the sad look on Tripitaka’s face, and so she sighs and bites down on the inside of her cheek, wills herself to show more empathy than she possesses. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I know you don’t like when I say things like that.”

Tripitaka shakes her head. Not angry, but obviously rather upset.

“You know how much it hurts,” she says, soft but heated. “You know I’m facing my own grief as well as yours. You can’t make me face him in your memories, knowing how I lost him, and then talk about your own life like it’s... like _you_ are expendable. You...” She swallows again, harder, and turns away, tears glimmering in her eyes. “You’re all I really have left of him.”

Sandy blinks. “Me?”

Tripitaka studies her for a moment, as though searching for deception. When she finds none, only sincere confusion, she says, “Well, you and Monica, I guess.”

“Ah.”

“You knew him. Both of you. But we’re only here for a short while, and I can’t really talk to Monica about that in the middle of this...” The regret on her face is devastating; it makes Sandy feel wretched and selfish. “And then we’ll be back out on the quest, and it’ll just be you.”

“I...” Sandy wets her lips, tries to think. “The things I remember... the things I thought I remembered... I’m not sure how true they are any more.”

“I know. But you will. When we’re finished here, you’ll remember everything. The time you spent with him and forgot, and the time you thought you remembered, and it’ll all make sense, and you... you know so much more about him than I do. Even now. Even mixed up and scrambled and...”

She trails off, swinging shakily to her feet, like she can’t bear to stay still another moment. Sandy watches the way she moves, bundling up the blankets and gathering their things together. Restless, uncomfortable. A little ashamed, maybe?

She takes a deep breath, tries to take her memory by the reins, to guide it and control it. For her.

“I thought he taught me everything.” She speaks slowly, feeling out each word with great care. It is so hard to keep things straight inside her head, so many experiences, both new and old, clashing and scraping against each other; she doesn’t really know what is real and what isn’t, but she tries for Tripitaka’s sake. “I thought all of my knowledge came from him. Everything I knew about being a god, my powers, the language, all of it. But he was only teaching me what we’d already learned together. What I’d forgotten.”

Tripitaka isn’t looking at her. She’s staring down at the blankets, half-blind and unfocused, like a part of her is very far away. Sandy watches her, wishing she could be far from here too.

It’s a long moment before Tripitaka comes back, to herself and to the moment; her breathing is shaky, like she doesn’t want to be here but knows she can’t hide. Sandy understands completely, and knows to avert her gaze, knows to pretend not to notice when Tripitaka turns her body even further away. She keeps her face in the shadows, shrouded by the sun, and try as she might Sandy cannot pierce them to make out her expression. Tripitaka, it seems, has learned how to hide from the very best.

“After this is over,” she says, voice shaking only slightly, “do you think... I mean, would you mind...”

She swallows so convulsively that Sandy sees her throat spasm even while she hides it.

“Anything,” she whispers. “You know I’m bound to you, Tripitaka. Anything.”

That doesn’t seem to help. Too much, probably, and too heavy; Tripitaka has always struggled with Sandy’s devotion.

“I’d like...” She takes a deep breath, then finally lifts her head to meet her eye. “I’d like to see you together. You and the Scholar, I mean. I’d like to see how he was with you when he was older. When he was more worldly, more...”

Sandy fights a tiny smile. “More like the Scholar _you_ remember?”

Tripitaka flushes, but she does not flinch. “Yeah. More like that.”

Sandy thinks about that. About letting Tripitaka walk through even more of her memories than she already has, about letting her into the few parts of herself she does know, the parts of herself she remembers all too clearly. About letting her see the version of herself she was back then, a version of herself that was neither flattering nor pleasant; she was as close to a demon as a god could be, a feral, twisted wraith, barely aware of who and what she was.

The thought of letting Tripitaka see such a thing, see _her_ like that... it feels like peeling away her skin and leaving only a skeleton behind, all bones and death, good for nothing but burning and burying. To see the Scholar, of course, would make her proud — he was so kind, so patient, even with a feral wretch who wanted only to do him harm — but to see Sandy as she was then, to see _what_ she was...

“You may not like it,” she manages.

She means, of course: _you may not like me._

Tripitaka studies her for a moment, like she’s trying to find the truth behind the words. Like she doesn’t need to hear it said to know what she means. Sandy feels cut open, dissected by the look in her eyes; it takes every ounce of self-control she has not to duck her head and hide.

Finally, after what seems like a lifetime, Tripitaka turns away, and says, “If you’re not comfortable...”

The words sound like defeat, like the deepest grief. Sandy feels it like it belongs to her.

“No,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean it like that. I... I would never deny you anything, Tripitaka. Never.”

True. Now, and always. Even after the North Water, she would have turned around and run to the ends of the world if she thought for even a moment that Tripitaka wanted her to, if she thought she might have wanted her _back_...

When Tripitaka finally lifts her head again, her expression isn’t what Sandy expects at all. The grief is understandable, of course, but she looks almost guilty now, almost embarrassed. Sandy wants to tell her they’re both past the point of feeling that way but she can’t seem to find the words.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Tripitaka tells her in a low, serious voice. “Don’t ever think that. Don’t you ever, _ever_ think that you have to make yourself uncomfortable for me.”

She’s shaking now, with a sort of passion that seems more physical than emotional. Sandy recognises it all too well, the desire to be angry when her heart is feeling exactly the opposite. Sorrow looks better on Tripitaka than the fear feels inside of Sandy, but neither are particularly welcome. A part of her wants to reach out, to touch her hand and tell her that she understands, but she is so inept, so incapable of any of those things, of touching or talking, of making her understanding understood.

She knows enough, at least, not to give too much of a voice to her feelings. Not to say, in any place Tripitaka can hear, that she owes her for so much more than just this, that she has owed her more than she can ever repay, for almost as long as she’s known her name. She recognises well enough by now the look on Tripitaka’s face, the ‘I’m nothing special’ look, the look that says she’ll shut down if confronted with the truth. And Sandy, for all her conflicted, confusing feelings, does not want that to happen.

So she says, as honestly as she can while hiding from the deeper truth, “I only meant that I want to make you happy. That you deserve to be happy, and I want to help with that.”

It probably doesn’t sound much better, but at least she tries.

Tripitaka’s face twists, like it doesn’t really know what expression it wants to make, then seems to give up entirely and just goes blank. The moment is over, Sandy can tell, and she doesn’t know what to feel about that. Relief, disappointment, self-loathing, or perhaps some combination of all three.

“I suppose we should find the others,” Tripitaka says, like that was the point of the conversation all along. “Maybe grab some breakfast, if you feel up to it?”

Sandy’s stomach turns at the thought, but she doesn’t argue. It’s not really about breakfast, she knows, or going back to the tavern or finding the others or any of the other tentative little things Tripitaka is trying to hide behind. It’s just Tripitaka being Tripitaka, as awkward and clumsy as Sandy in her own way, changing the subject to one less uncomfortable for them both.

Equally relieved to leave the other behind, Sandy just cocks her head and lets it happen. Pretends to believe the nonsense about food, about people, about anything that isn’t _this_.

“I don’t know if I could eat anything,” she says.

And it is very close to the truth — knowing as she does what is coming, the journey into Locke’s corner of her past, as twisted and corrupt as it must be — but it’s also a less-than-subtle invitation for Tripitaka to chide her.

And she does, rolling her eyes and saying, “ _Sandy_ ,” with a smile she doesn’t even try to hide, the smile of someone who sees what’s happening, who recognises the willingness to go along with a change of subject, however unwanted, and is very grateful for it.

Sandy doesn’t quite manage to smile back. Doesn’t manage to still the churning in her stomach, either.

But as they stand together, sharing between them the burden of their things, and turn back to the sanctuary of the village, she feels closer to herself — and to the part of her that has spent its life devoted to the name _Tripitaka_ — than she has in a good long while.

*

Back at the tavern, it’s just Monica alone behind the bar.

Sandy can’t figure out whether to be relieved or disappointed, happy that she doesn’t have to face the others just yet or anxious that they’re only delaying the inevitable. She wants to get it over with, but at the same time she wants to never have to deal with it at all. The contradiction makes her vision swim, makes her feel light-headed and thoroughly miserable.

Tripitaka squeezes her hand, then crosses to the bar, eyes already wandering to the kitchen. Her enthusiasm for breakfast is welcome; it means she’s not trying to goad Sandy into stepping out of the doorway.

She doesn’t want to enter the place, doesn’t want to sit down, make herself vulnerable. Doesn’t want to really talk to Monica either. She should feel guilty, or worse than guilty, for throwing herself at her when she learned the truth, for resorting to violence in her desperation to uncover more of it. Should, yes, but somehow she doesn’t, and as hard as she tries to find the part of her that is no longer that wild, untamed thing, it remains beyond her reach.

Monica, however, has no intention of letting her remain unseen. She cocks her head to the side, levels her with a pointed scowl, and says, “You plan on coming in, or are just you trying to make the place look untidy?”

Sandy leans against the doorjamb, just as pointed. “Here is fine.”

Monica narrows her eye, then glances at Tripitaka, as though seeking guidance. Tripitaka just shakes her head and makes a vague ‘don’t ask’ gesture.

“It’s nothing personal,” she says, no doubt more to keep the peace than because she really believes it. “She’s just a little edgy this morning, that’s all.”

“Yes,” Sandy mutters, mostly to herself. “Let’s call it that, shall we?”

Monica quirks a brow in her direction, but doesn’t push. “Right. Suppose that makes sense. I’d be a mite jittery too if I had to spend the day running around inside a demon’s head.” She curls her lip, making it quite clear that her distaste has nothing to do with demons in general and everything to do with Locke in particular. “You sure you don’t want to keep going through mine instead? Reckon I can get you a little further, at least.”

“No.” It doesn’t really hit her until after she’s said it, as her voice grows tight and high, that she might have given this rather more thought than she first realised, that perhaps it means more to her than she thought it did. “No. I’m tired of seeing my suffering through my friends’ eyes. Tired of not knowing what to feel, how to respond to you or Pigsy or whoever else. At least Locke is _supposed_ to be my enemy. At least I _know_ that.”

Monica frowns, glancing not-at-all-subtly back at Tripitaka. They exchange a series of looks, each less tactful than the last, an entire conversation passing between them before Sandy’s eyes. They’re both thinking the same thing, she can tell, and neither one of them wants to be the one to have to say the words aloud. Sandy growls, annoyed by the exchange, annoyed at having to stand around looking like a fool while she waits for them to decide whether or not she’s worth including.

It is Tripitaka who finally speaks. Visibly uncomfortable, like she really doesn’t want to but understands that she’s probably the only person in the world right now that Sandy will listen to. The only one she’ll make eye-contact with, at least. Apparently that means something.

“Sandy.” Her name sounds like a warning, like she’s trying to prepare her for what she’s about to hear, like she hasn’t had the same thought herself, a hundred times or more, since she learned the truth. “You know, it’s... it’s entirely possible we might have to go into Pigsy’s memory as well. There might be moments only he...”

“I know.” Sandy’s jaw clenches of its own accord. “I’m quite aware, Tripitaka.”

She turns, pressing her forehead against the doorjamb, letting the rough wood scrape against her skin. She hopes it leaves splinters, hopes that when she leaves this place she will carry it inside of her, under her skin, an inescapable reminder of the pain that she suffered here, the pain she doesn’t remember yet and the pain she’s enduring now, every moment she looks around and both remembers and doesn’t.

Eyes closed, she doesn’t see the look on Tripitaka’s face. She hears the way she sucks in her breath, though, the hitch in her chest, like she’s bracing herself to try again, to push harder to—

“Well, then.” Monica, cutting her off before she can try, before she can do unwitting damage in her efforts to do good. Sandy doesn’t know whether to be grateful or aggravated that she thinks she needs protecting. “All the more reason to get a good breakfast in you.”

Sandy opens her eyes. Scowls, though she suspects only the wall is in any position to see it. She doesn’t want to be protected, doesn’t want to be coddled, doesn’t want to be told what is best for her... and she definitely, _definitely_ doesn’t want a good breakfast.

“No,” she says, then, through gritted teeth, barely mustering the words at all, “thank you.”

“You think it was a suggestion? That’s adorable.” And just like that, though Sandy never even heard her move, there she is, gripping her shoulder like a vice. “Into the kitchen with you, my girl, and less of your bloody back-chat.”

Sensing that she stands no chance with Monica, Sandy turns to Tripitaka. “I don’t...” 

“Don’t look at me,” Tripitaka says, sounding entirely too chipper about the whole affair. Relief, most likely, at the shift in conversation to something safer and simpler. “You know there’s no arguing with Monica about food. I guess you’ll just have to do what she says.”

Sandy pouts. “Tripi _taka_...”

To no avail, of course. Tripitaka only folds her arms and pouts right back. “ _San_ dy.”

Monica, swiftly losing her patience, simply rolls her eyes and snaps, “Both of you. _Now_.”

And that, apparently, is that.

*

So, then. Breakfast. 

More bread, warm and soft from the oven. And more broth too, and the taste of spices and root vegetables, and so much sensory memory that the first bite makes Sandy feel dizzy and confused.

She remembers it vividly now, or parts of it, so much that it almost hurts. Enough, at least, that the smell and the flavour send her cascading back in time, back into the corners of her mind, back to the place where she was small and sickly, to pains in her chest and her throat, to coughing so violently, so endlessly that she made herself vomit water. She remembers Monica’s hands at her back, big and strong, remembers the cool salve she would rub into her chest to help her breathe, remembers her voice, bigger than all the rest of her put together, stern and serious and sober but sometimes — secretly — sort of smiling a little bit too.

She remembers the broth, too, the first time she tasted it. Warm, comforting, it was the first thing she’d eaten in so long, the first thing to fill her empty belly after days and days and days; she remembers how it warmed her from the inside, how the warmth spread and spread all through her body until it filled her completely, until she felt strong and safe again. Remembers how, after she became ill, it was the only thing she could eat, the only thing her shivering, shuddering body could reliably keep down, the only thing that didn’t raze her throat when she tried to swallow it.

She remembers how Monica would always make it for her, no matter the hour, no matter the inconvenience, remembers how she would complain and grumble, annoyed because it wasn’t even a proper broth, just some mess she’d thrown together that first night in a hurry. She remembers watching her smile even through her complaints, and the way she would tousle her hair and sigh, _“Guess there’s no accounting for taste, eh, girl?”_ , and try with all her might to pretend she wasn’t happy.

Sandy’s eyes are starting to sting again, a dull ache that radiates through her head and her heart. She shoves the bowl away, tries to block out the smell of sanctuary, the taste of home.

“I’m finished,” she says, climbing unsteadily to her feet. “Can we leave now, please? I want to get this over with.”

Tripitaka looks up at her, then down into her own bowl, still half-full, with a mournful sigh. “I suppose we _should_ get going...”

“Not on an empty stomach, you don’t.” Monica, putting her foot down with her usual ferocity. She shoots Sandy a glare that could likely stop a projectile in mid-flight, and says, “You too, Sandy girl.”

“Can’t.” It’s not really an argument, just a statement of fact; recognising it for what it is, Monica softens almost immediately. “Too many memories in the bowl. Makes my head hurt. Makes all of me hurt.”

Monica closes her eye. She looks nostalgic and deeply, deeply sad.

“If there’s one thing this little stroll down Memory Lane has given me,” she murmurs, almost to herself, “it’s a reminder that, once upon a time, you made some kind of sense.” Sandy bristles slightly at that; it’s nothing she hasn’t heard before, of course, but that doesn’t make it less unpleasant to hear. Noticing the way she goes tense, Monica shakes her head, instantly contrite. “Didn’t mean it like that. But it... ugh. Bloody mess that it is, just makes me wonder what you might have been. If there’d been more left of you. If you’d had a chance to be—”

“Don’t.” Tripitaka, on her feet before Sandy even has a chance to react; her breakfast entirely forgotten now, she steps between them like a barrier, like a guardian. Her voice is hard, her fingers too, like iron on Sandy’s arm. “Don’t say things like that, Monica. She doesn’t need ‘more’, not of anything. She’s fine just the way she is.”

“Ah.” Monica’s gaze flickers from one to the other, from Tripitaka’s seething anger to the way Sandy is shrinking away from them both, self-conscious and unhappy. “That is, you’re right, of course. Didn’t mean to imply she’s not.”

“Good.”

The word shouldn’t make her recoil like it does, but the look on Tripitaka’s face is a frightening thing, intense and a little bit wild. This means a lot to her, and Sandy isn’t sure why.

Neither is Monica, but she’s wise enough not to question it. “As I said,” she says quietly. “Never seen her thrive the way she does with you. Never seen anyone thrive like that, come to it.”

Sandy shivers, struck by a memory, her younger self wide-eyed and confused gazing up into Monica’s eyes — two, not one — and asking what that strange new word meant.

 _Thrive_. It is no less confusing to her now than it was back then.

“I don’t know that I’m thriving,” she whispers, more to herself than either of her companions. “But thank you for saying so.”

Monica clears her throat. “Yeah. Sure.” She seems to get a little misty-eyed for a moment or two, like she’s vanishing into a memory of her own, then shakes herself. “Eh, don’t you mind me. Run along, then, if that’s what you want.”

The change of heart is dizzying. Sandy reels, blinking like a fighter who’s been struck between the eyes, then shrugs and rolls with it, simply glad for the opportunity to escape.

“I’m sorry, Monica,” she says, with partial sincerity. “I like your broth, very much. But it’s inside me now, and I remember why, and it tastes like _then_ , and I can’t...” She swallows; she can feel herself starting to slip, and she focuses as hard as she can on the strength of Tripitaka’s fingers gripping her arm, her warmth and her presence. “It’s hard.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” She’s a bit more distant now than she was, like maybe her mind has left the moment behind and is just waiting for the rest of her to catch up. “I’ll see if I can fix you up something different for lunch, yeah?”

She says it so simply, so matter-of-fact, like it was never a question that she would do such a thing, prepare their meals and keep them all fed and warm, like that’s the only way it could ever have been. And perhaps it is, in her mind, but to Sandy it is the strangest, most foreign thought in all the world.

Tripitaka, taking it in stride, merely nods her thanks and nudges Sandy out the door.

She stays quiet — they both do — until they’re outside and safely out of earshot, until the tavern is behind them and they’re a fair distance away. Sandy follows diligently, watching Tripitaka’s face, trying to read between the deepening lines, the frown that looks like it’s feeling too many different things at the same time.

Loathe to disturb her, she bites her tongue, keeping a few steps behind and waiting for the moment to break.

Which it does. Inevitably. Always.

Tripitaka doesn’t slow her pace, doesn’t even turn to look at her. But her shoulders shudder as though carrying a terrible weight, and then she blurts out in a heavy, angry-sounding voice, “She’s wrong, you know.”

Sandy bites down on her tongue. “No idea what you mean.”

It’s not as true as she’d like it to be.

Tripitaka huffs, annoyed but not surprised, like she was expecting the denial, and the dishonesty hiding behind it.

“What she said.” Her voice rises a little, but she still doesn’t raise her head. “You heard her: ‘if there’d been more left of you’. Like you’re not...” She shakes her head; Sandy watches the emotion colour the back of her neck. “She’s wrong. There’s so much of you, Sandy. So much that I wonder sometimes, how you keep it all inside.”

“I don’t,” Sandy mumbles, feeling self-conscious. “Most days, I... most days, it feels like too much.”

Tripitaka ignores that. Sandy had a feeling she would.

“You’re not what she thinks you are,” she says fiercely. “And you’re not what you think you are, either. You’re more than the holes in your memory or the damaged parts of your mind. You’re more than whatever was done to you and whatever scars it left behind. You’re so vast and powerful and so _much_. And none of this changes any of that. Okay?”

Maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s not. Hard to know for sure, and Sandy learned long before now that trying only causes even more pain. She closes her eyes for a moment, promptly trips over her own feet, and opens them again with a weary sigh.

“This means a lot to you,” she says quietly. “Why?”

Tripitaka thinks on that for a short while. They’re still moving, slow but inevitable, towards the palace, and she’s got a hard, heavy look on her face, like maybe she’s as anxious as Sandy is of what’s to come. Can’t be easy, Sandy supposes, knowing that she has to watch helplessly as two of her friends stand on opposing sides, one of them perhaps a witness to the most terrible things, and to know that it’s past, that it’s already happened and there’s nothing she can do to stop it or even make it easier.

Finally, thoughtfully, Tripitaka shakes her out of her reverie. “I’m not sure,” she confesses in a low voice. “But it does. It’s important, I...”

She trails off, sighing. Sandy takes a moment to consider, not just her words but her expression too, the conflict on her face, the struggles rippling below the surface.

“You keep telling me that it doesn’t matter,” she says slowly. “What happened to me. Whether it made me what I am, or whether I would have become that way regardless. You keep saying that the holes in my head are unimportant, that the damage to my mind doesn’t define me. You tell me I’m still the version of me that you know, and you say over and over again that nothing else matters. You say it so emphatically, I have to wonder if perhaps it _does_ matter.”

“It’s complicated, I guess.” Tripitaka winces, steadies herself, and finally looks up at her. She’s not quite tearful, but there is a mist behind her eyes that says she’s getting close. “It’s just... I’ve seen people drowned by their pasts before. At the monastery. The monks tended a lot of desperate people, people plagued by... by very different kinds of demons. People who couldn’t let go of their past pain, of the terrible, horrible things that had happened to them. I’ve seen it pull them down, swallow them whole, destroy them. And I don’t...”

“You don’t want that to happen to me,” Sandy finishes blandly. “You don’t want my past to break me a second time.”

“I don’t want you to... lose yourself in it.” It is not often that Tripitaka stumbles, that words sound clumsy and uncomfortable on her tongue, but it is happening now. “I don’t want you to fall soo far into what happened then that you lose sight of everything that’s happened since. Monica says you’re _thriving_ , Sandy, and I... I think it’s important to hold onto that.”

Sandy wets her lips. “She says I thrive with _you_ ,” she reminds her. “The thing I was before, the life I lived when I was alone... that was not thriving.”

Tripitaka stops walking. Stops so suddenly that Sandy loses her balance and sort of stumbles into her. It takes a couple of seconds for her to right herself, to remember which way is up; apparently she’s still a little light-headed from another poor night and not enough sustenance. Best not to let Tripitaka see that, she thinks, and overcompensates by standing up much too straight.

“You have me now,” Tripitaka reminds her, gentle but unsteady. “I mean, not just to anchor you through this. Not just while you need me to keep you tethered or grounded or all the rest of it. I mean... I mean you _have_ me. Even when this is over. Even when you don’t need me, you’ll still have me.”

Sandy freezes.

That—

It weighs a lot.

It _means_ a lot.

She’s not sure Tripitaka really understands how much.

“You were going to leave us,” she says, because for once the truth is less terrifying. “Would have, if your mother truly had been your mother.”

“I...” She sighs. “Maybe.”

“Certainly. You told me so yourself: you wanted me to let you go. You believed my efforts at talking sense into you were born of jealousy, an inability to watch you leave. Again and again, you told me...”

Trails off. Even now, with countless more important things, it is hard to swallow those memories.

Tripitaka, understanding and finally seeing the weight of what she almost did — what she would have done, had the opportunity been sincere — accepts the accusation with her head bowed in regret.

“I was... naive,” she says. “Blinded by... by my own past pain.”

Sandy nods. “You were willing to leave. Leave the quest. Leave us. Leave...” But she will not allow herself to say _me_. “If I allow myself to depend on you to keep me ‘thriving’ and that impulse takes you again, what then?” She’s trying to make it sound like a passing thought, but it’s not; she’s thought of little else since their reunion in Davari’s prison. “It’s nice to thrive. It’s nice to belong, to be a part of something. But I have learned too many times that those things are not permanent.”

“Sandy...”

Sandy shakes her head, and tries with little success to keep breathing. “The only thing that endures, whether I want it to or not, is _me_. And that is what I must learn to be. Even if it means not thriving.”

And she swallows as much air as her lungs can hold, steadies herself, and turns to start walking. Just like she did that night back at the North Water, to turn and leave, to go away and away and _away_ —

But this time Tripitaka doesn’t let her.

“Sandy,” she says again.

And her hand is on Sandy’s arm, holding on as tight as a vice, stopping her, stalling her, keeping her in place. And her eyes are dark, catching Sandy’s and holding them, not letting them go either, searching and seeking and striving, until Sandy has no choice but to surrender completely, to let them find her, all of her, eyes and heart and all the fear and pain hidden in them both.

And every last part of Tripitaka is trying so hard, struggling to connect, to prove that she is there, that she is present, that she’s not going to leave again, that she won’t ever again.

And it is such a vast, unfathomable promise, so impossible—

And it is everything Sandy needs, everything she is afraid of, everything she can’t let herself believe. And she doesn’t want to allow it, but she can’t fight down the part of her that aches, that yearns, that _wants_. Can’t fight the part of her that remembers asking, all those years ago, what ‘thriving’ meant, the part that is hearing those words again now, as though for the first time, and slowly, oh so slowly, beginning to understand.

“I...”

It’s all she can say.

It’s all she _is_.

All she’s ever been. Her, just her, the only truth she knows, the only truth in the world that is safe—

But then Tripitaka pulls her in, holds her close and desperately tight, and whispers, “Not any more.”

And Sandy doesn’t know which truth frightens her more.

*

Blessedly, they don’t go to the prison straight away.

Tripitaka wants to check in with the Shaman first, to discuss their strategy going forward. Sandy, being rather preoccupied in trying to get her wayward heart under control, does not argue.

She walks slowly, keeps a few paces behind. Conscious, effortful. Struggles, with every step and every breath, every moment she wants to throw herself into Tripitaka’s arms, to remind herself that she can’t, that this can’t happen, that Tripitaka can only be her anchor for as long as she needs her. She can’t afford to want, to care, to _feel_. She can’t afford to become sick in her heart as well as her head. Can’t afford to forget, even for a moment, the terrible price of feeling too much.

Locke’s words, but they ring in her head now as if they were her own. A dangerous thing, she knows, with what’s about to come, but she can’t help herself: the snake is under her skin.

It is much easier, facing the others. And even more than she expects, because Pigsy has wisely opted to make himself scarce.

“Didn’t think you’d want him around,” Monkey explains with a smug half-shrug. “So I ‘suggested’ he take a hike someplace else. You’re welcome.”

His posture is somewhat stiffer than usual, though, and Sandy wonders if he’s having a hard time processing this new information as well. He’s the only one, other than Sandy, who didn’t know — or _suspect_ — that Pigsy might have been involved. It’s no secret that he hates being left out of things, hates feeling excluded or ignored, but Sandy flatters herself that this runs a little deeper than his usual sulking at having been kept out of the loop.

She knows better than to ask, though. Following his lead and ignoring the issue entirely, she summons a shaky smile and says, “Thank you, Monkey.”

The Shaman, meanwhile, is muttering his disapproval. “Foolish sentimentality,” he huffs, stepping out from the shadows in his usual subtle-but-somehow-dramatic manner. “You must realise that his mind is the most logical next step—”

“Don’t care,” Sandy grits out, interrupting sharply. “I’m not going in there. Not until there’s no other choice, and maybe not even then.” Her ferocity startles him, and Tripitaka too; she tries to soothe her, touching her arm and her hip, but Sandy flinches away and presses on. “I won’t watch my pain through his eyes. I can’t, I won’t, I... _no_.”

The Shaman, to everyone’s surprise, does not press the issue.

“The tavern owner, then,” he says instead. “We should persevere with her memories until your time together runs dry. Even if you believe you know what is to come, given your closeness, we should continue until you separate.”

“No,” Sandy says again, hating the way her voice shakes. “I feel too much when I’m with her. I don’t want to... I... why is this so difficult for you to understand?”

Probably because she’s not explaining it very well. In this, as with everything else that has ever mattered, she is unable to express herself, unable to speak coherently.

But there it is: fear, a raw, visceral thing, a vice squeezing her lungs, her heart, as potent when she thinks of Monica as it is when she thinks of Pigsy. They’re both her friends, both places she once believed were safe; she is no more able to face the moment she is torn from the tavern, ripped away from yet another home, than she can face her suffering through the eyes of a friend.

And she is afraid, too, of feeling what Monica felt in the moment they were separated, of knowing exactly how that moment affected her, beyond all doubt or deniability. Can’t bear the thought of feeling her pain... or, far worse, of knowing with absolutely certainty that she felt nothing at all.

She shudders, clears her too-dry throat, and looks at Tripitaka. She just wants someone to understand, to tell her that what she’s feeling — chaotic and convoluted though it is — makes some sort of sense, that it is all right to feel this way. Her chest is heaving, hopeful and scared, and she both hates and loves the way it gets just a little bit easier when Tripitaka takes her hand and smiles.

“It’s going to be hard enough,” she says to the Shaman; her grip tightens just a little, squeezing in rhythm with her words. “You keep saying that her emotions will cause harm if she can’t control them. Don’t you think it’s best for everyone if we try to limit them as much as possible? If Locke is the one she feels least attached to...”

She trails off, letting the point stand for itself, a gleaming blade on the air.

The Shaman rolls his eyes, conceding but not at all happy about it.

“You ask a lot of me,” he says, and there is a ferocity to his words that wasn’t there a moment ago. “To wander the mind of a god is one thing. To do so with a human, quite another. But to pierce the thoughts and memories of my own kind... that is a deep cut indeed.” For the first time since this began, he seems truly uncomfortable. “There are _rules_.”

“Demons have rules?” Monkey chimes in, always glad for an excuse to poke at the Shaman a bit. “That’s news to me.”

“Be silent, Monkey King.” His teeth are clenched, jaw paler than Sandy has ever seen it. “Cross me on this, and I will turn my back on you all and never look back.”

Sandy’s heart gives a short, sharp spasm. “Monkey, don’t, please.”

“Fine, fine.” He rolls his eyes, bows to the Shaman with absolutely no sincerity. “Sorry, oh wise and powerful demon. Forgive my indiscretion.”

The Shaman, naturally, only sneers. “The sarcasm is unnecessary. The apology, however, I will gladly accept. ‘Sorry’ is such a pleasant word on your tongue.”

Watching, Tripitaka’s eyes widen. “This is... uncomfortable.”

Sandy swallows down a smile. “I think it’s rather endearing.”

“Of course you do.” She softens a bit, though, cocking her head to get a good look at her. “It’s nice to see you smile. Sort of, anyway.”

Naturally, drawing attention to the moment chases it away completely. Sandy shakes herself, growing stiff and serious again.

“We should begin,” she says to the Shaman. “My memories are chaotic now. Hard to keep the past from the present. I don’t want to experience what’s coming, but if we must I would prefer to do it before I lose myself completely.”

That gets his attention. He turns back to her in a flash, Monkey and the rest of the room all but forgotten, and studies her long and hard. First from a distance, eyes narrowed and head angled to one side, then closer, stalking towards her like a predator circling its next meal; his expression doesn’t change, but as soon as he is within touching distance, he does.

She’s used to this by now, so much so that she doesn’t even flinch. The way he presses his fingers to her face, the way he never asks permission, acting under his own authority, as though by accepting his help they have accepted every method he uses, for good or ill. Perhaps they have, at that; Sandy has long since given up the notion of personal space where he’s involved, and even Monkey has stopped yelling at him not to touch her. They’ve all simply accepted that he knows what he’s doing and that his intentions are as close to generous as a demon can get.

Doesn’t make the experience less unpleasant, though. Sandy’s mind itches where he makes contact, a cold shiver trickling down her spine like snow melting inside her veins. She’s used to this as well, and to the way the sensation vanishes like smoke the instant he pulls away, and she has learned to simply grit her teeth and wait for it to pass.

“As difficult as I’m sure it must feel,” he says when he’s done, “your memories are reasserting themselves rather well.”

Sandy blinks, genuinely surprised. “They are?”

“Indeed.” He thins his lips, contemplative. “Evidently, you are much stronger than we thought.”

“We?” Tripitaka steps back between them with a fierce — if somewhat tiny — glare. “Some of us always knew she was strong.”

“Of course you did.” He brushes her aside like a gnat, refocuses on Sandy. “The disorientation you feel is natural, and will likely remain until your memories are as complete as we can make them. Once it has passed, we will be able to make another attempt at repairing the damage inside you, but until that can happen, the only advice I can give is to not over-exert yourself.” He narrows his eyes, and Sandy feel queasily violated. “As an example: I would advise _against_ spending the night outside in the pouring rain, weeping until you’re hoarse.”

Sandy flushes, hot and humiliated. “I was upset.”

“Mm. And now you have a headache. Worth it?”

She decides not to dignify that with a reply. “I’m sorry you don’t want to involve other demons in this,” she says instead, redirected the attention from her discomfort to his, “but if it counts for anything, Locke doesn’t mind.”

Monkey splutters. “You asked her _permission_?”

“Of course I did.” She doesn’t look at him, though. There is no shame in compassion, this she knows, and yet his disbelief slices right through her. “Demon or not, her mind is her own.”

The back of her neck grows warm as he stares at her, like he’s trying to figure out whether she’s really serious. Possibly he thinks she’s just making it up for the Shaman’s sake, fabricating a lie to put him at ease; possibly he even hopes that’s the case. He seems almost disappointed when she looks up, shy and self-conscious, and lets him see that it’s the truth, that there are lines she can’t let herself cross, even against enemies who would never think to return the favour.

Beside her, very softly, the Shaman murmurs, “Admirable.”

“Like you even know what that means,” Monkey snaps, turning that diamond-hard glare onto him. “When was the last time _you_ asked permission before forcing your way into someone’s mind?”

The Shaman considers that for less than a second. “I said it was admirable,” he says coolly. “I did not say that I had any intention of following suit.”

“Of _course_ you didn’t.”

Typically unruffles, the Shaman looks him in the eye. “My nature is not the same as yours. This you know perfectly well. I was made to bend gods’ wills to my own; ‘forcing my way into your minds’, as you so eloquently put it, is literally my reason for existing. I can no more fight what I was created to do, Monkey King, than you can silence your arrogance, or your absent friend can renounce his gluttony.”

Monkey thinks on that for a while. Seems genuine, even, like he really wants to see the other side for once. For a brief moment, it even looks like he might be about to concede the point, or at least accept that there are certain fundamental differences between their species that cannot be changed or even fully understood by the other side.

Gone too fast, of course. There are any number of things he could say or think, any number of responses that might show some measure of comprehension—

Instead, he preens, smirks, and says, “It’s not ‘arrogance’ if I can back it up.”

Sandy sighs. Tripitaka buries her face in her hands.

The Shaman, clearly expecting such a response, just rolls his eyes. “Factually inaccurate,” he shoots back. “But then, I would not expect one so _arrogant_ to fathom these things.”

The smirk falls off Monkey’s face. “If anyone knows anything about arrogance,” he mutters sullenly, “it’s _you_.”

“True enough. I’ve spent time enough inside _your_ mind, have I not?” Thus dismissing him, he rounds on Sandy again. “I don’t expect your kind to understand the nuances at play here, nor do I expect you to waste your precious strength on trying. All I ask is acknowledgement that what I do to aid your recovery, I do at considerable personal cost.”

Sandy looks down at her boots again, feeling ashamed. “I do know that,” she says, very quietly. “Known it for some time. You’ve been selfless and giving of yourself and your strength many times, and I... I apologise if I don’t always show the proper understanding or respect.”

He softens just a little, thankful in spite of himself. “It is to be expected,” he says, speaking rather more gently to her than he does to Monkey. “Gods are not often eager to empathise with those not of their own.”

That doesn’t seem very fair, but Sandy knows better than to say so out loud. There will be time enough to debate and discuss their differences when this is all over, when she is whole again and able to string two sentences together without losing her mind, when he is able to go more than a moment without surrendering his strength to aid his enemy. When they both have the luxury of being _themselves_ , wholly and completely, without the burden of so much suffering.

Tripitaka, meanwhile, lacks the patience to wait. She’s bristling, scowling, and muttering, somewhat ridiculously, “She _is_ empathic.”

Monkey chokes on his laughter. Sandy has to swallow to keep from doing the same, even knowing that the words come from a place of affection.

Untrue, though. To the point of utter absurdity.

She has a few good qualities — at least, she’s developing some, learning slowly from her more talented friends — but empathy is something she has always lacked. Something she’s never missed, in truth, and even now something she doesn’t truly understand. Where would she have learned such a thing, alone as she was for years upon years, in the darkest corners of the world, hating humans and demons alike, as they hated her?

“Thank you, Tripitaka,” she says, as tactfully as she can. “But I’m really not.”

“Of course you’re not,” the Shaman says. Calm, unoffended, like he wouldn’t expect or want her to be any other way. “It is a god’s nature to be insular, to see only as far as how things might affect you. Look at your Monkey King, as the prime example.”

Monkey scowls, but this time, rather tellingly, he doesn’t argue.

“At least we have better hair,” he counters, and leaves it at that.

The Shaman grunts, though the look on his face says he disagrees but has no intention of pressing the issue. A shame, Sandy thinks morosely; she’d gladly take the endless back-and-forth of their sniping over the horrors still to come.

Not her choice, though. The Shaman spares her barely a moment to gather her courage, then gestures at the door with a flourish that has even Monkey looking impressed. “So, then, shall we?”

Swallowing past the stones suddenly lodged in her throat, Sandy nods.

*

They find Locke lounging in her cell.

Back to the wall, hands folded in her lap, she’s a vision of carelessness and indifference, and she doesn’t so much as cast a glance their way as they file into the dank dungeon.

Monkey has insisted on joining them this time, ostensibly to stand guard and to shore up their numbers. “There should never be more demons than gods in a room,” he mutters, though Sandy has a quiet suspicion that there’s something a little deeper than that.

Protective, maybe, or perhaps he’s simply tired of being the only one who doesn’t get to be involved. Either way, he won’t be swayed, not even by Tripitaka’s less-than-gentle warnings.

Sandy keeps her feelings on the subject to herself. Doesn’t want to appear weak or childish, doesn’t want him to know that she’s afraid. Wants him to think she cares as little as Locke seems to, as little as he would if their positions were reversed.

So she keeps her eyes on the ground, keeps her thoughts as grounded as she can. Keeps her breathing—

Well. Keeps breathing. Mostly.

Locke doesn’t acknowledge them until she has no other choice, until they’re practically on top of her little cell. Only then, when there’s no avoiding it, does she stand and saunter her way over to the bars.

“I hope one of you lot has my breakfast,” she remarks, by way of greeting.

Sandy winces, feeling a twinge of guilt. “Um... that is, uh...”

Locke’s expression hardens, just a little. “You bloody _forgot_ , didn’t you?”

“My mind is full of holes. Sometimes things fall out.”

“Right. Of course.” Voice flat, unimpressed. Well, Sandy can hardly blame her for that. “You really expect me to let you go frolicking about inside my head on a bleeding empty stomach?”

“You can eat when they’re done,” Monkey tells her, just as flat.

Locke looks up sharply, seeing him for the first time; she loses a bit of her glower, if only a little bit. “You know, those muscles of yours were much prettier when you weren’t using them to threaten me.”

Monkey chuckles, seemingly in spite of himself, but doesn’t rise to the bait this time.

The Shaman doesn’t say anything; he’s visibly annoyed by the distractions, but remains quiet and focused, as though working with a great deal of effort to block them all out. He’s got a sober look on his face, a tightness in the set of his jaw that Sandy doesn’t often get to see. It usually comes with over-exertion, the moments following a particularly exhausting journey through her mind, or after he’s spent a little too long trying to bring her back from the brink. She’s not used to seeing it this early, though: before he wears himself down, rather than afterwards.

He makes a point of ignoring Monkey and the others, even Sandy; focused on Locke, to the exclusion of all else, he stops at the door to her cell and peers in with narrowed eyes. His intensity is unsettling, seemingly to Locke as much as anyone else; he’s studying her like she’s someone he’s never met before, like they didn’t spend days together on the road, like they haven’t had plenty of time to get acquainted with each other if they wanted to.

Maybe it’s a demon thing; Sandy wouldn’t know. For someone who has spent her whole life fighting demons and grappling with the idea that she might be one herself, she understands very little of their ways and their culture. She knows that the Shaman prefers his own company to that of others — Davari seems to have been the exception, not the rule — but that doesn’t explain why Locke, naturally a social creature, made no effort to get to know her fellow demon. Politeness, or something else?

She wonders, more than a little startled, when she began to think about such things. Demon habits, demon behaviours, demon etiquette. When did she start to care how these monsters live their lives? And would it have happened if she wasn’t forced to trust them with her life?

She doesn’t want to think about it. The Shaman has proven himself trustworthy, even compassionate in his aloof, distant way, but even a damaged, dependent god can’t afford to think too deeply about the hearts and souls of her enemies. Not when they’re in the middle of a war.

She shakes it off, pays attention.

“I apologise,” the Shaman is saying to Locke. “Given the choice, I would not reduce myself to such... unpleasantness.”

The word is clearly an understatement, but Locke seems wholly unaffected. Makes a show of it, at least; still, observant as she is, Sandy notes the way she tucks her hands out of sight, like she’s afraid someone might see the way they’re not as still and steady as they normally are.

“Now, don’t go feeling bad on my account,” she says, a little too quick and a little too casual. “You know I’d never spare a thought for you.”

“That is your prerogative,” the Shaman says, furrowing his brow. “But I have standards to maintain, and this is... distasteful.”

Another understatement. Cleaner, sharper, like a knife polished until it gleams; he’s not looking at anyone else, but Sandy suspects this is for their benefit more than Locke’s.

If she does share his feelings, Locke keeps it well hidden. Perhaps she realises there’s nothing to be done about it, resigned to the inevitability that what must be done will be done, whether they like it or not. Then again, perhaps she truly doesn’t care. Locke has never been one to waste her time on sentimentality or deep thought; so long as she’s well looked-after, she doesn’t care much about anything at all. For as long as Sandy has known and studied her, her priorities extend only as far as her own comfort.

“If it’s _not_ distasteful,” she says, her usual brazenness dampened only a little bit by nerves, “you’re not doing it right.”

Monkey snorts his agreement, then instantly sobers and starts glaring again.

The Shaman, meanwhile, narrows his eyes but doesn’t make any further comment. Sandy is a little surprised; she’d expected him to be relieved that Locke is not the average demon, that she sets no stock by what is right or proper, that he has no reason to be afraid of doing wrong by her. Instead, he seems almost more frustrated by her indifference than he was by Monkey’s. He doesn’t say so, but Sandy has spent enough time with him since this began to recognise when he’s distressed.

“I see,” he mutters, losing a touch of his patience. “Have the gods told you what to expect from the process?”

Locke ponders that for a moment, then shrugs. “Never thought to ask. Don’t especially care, either, if you want the truth of it. Just don’t wrinkle the clothes any worse than they already are, and we’re all good.”

It’s clearly not the answer he was expecting, though perhaps it should have been, nor is it the one he wanted. He glances briefly back at Tripitaka and Sandy, then carefully raps on the cell door with his knuckles.

“May I?”

Tripitaka nods, then gestures vaguely at Monkey to unlock the cell. He’s characteristically reluctant about it, glowering first at the Shaman and then at Locke, like he’s not quite sure which one them he trusts the least. He settles, in the end, for throwing a general “Don’t do anything stupid,” into the empty space between them, and then skulking off to the far wall to stand guard.

The Shaman enters the cell alone, guiding Locke away from the others and talking to her in a hushed, private voice. Sandy’s keen hearing picks up the phrase “may be painful”, but little more; she wonders if this is the first time he’s ever needed to do this with one of his own kind, if perhaps he’s a little unsure himself of what to expect. He’s been so self-assured thus far, the sudden lack of composure is very noticable.

And disconcerting.

Perhaps sensing her unease, Tripitaka squeezes her hand. A gentle, calming sort of gesture, it draws her attention away from the two demons and back to where it belongs. Looking down she finds her dark eyes glimmering, heavy with quiet concern and quieter strength.

“Are you okay?”

Sandy wets her lips. Her stomach feels sour, her chest too tight to comfortably breathe, and the dank, too-close walls aren’t helping. Still, she doesn’t want Tripitaka to worry any more than she already is, so she takes a couple of deep breaths, nods, and musters a smile.

“I’m fine.”

It comes out more like a whimper than she intends, but at least it does come out. Good enough, she supposes, all things considered.

Tripitaka smiles back, taking the words at face value. Sandy doesn’t doubt for a moment that she can see the lie, but perhaps she thinks that if they both pretend hard enough they might convince themselves that it’s true.

“Good,” she says, ever so softly. “Good. This is just like before.”

It’s not, though. Not really. Sandy knows what’s coming, can feel it skittering under her skin, inside her bones, dread and panic: _separation_ , if not from her mind then from the place she felt safe. Her younger self is terrified, her grown self nauseous, and neither one of them wants to see what they know they must. There’s a reason she’s insisted on Locke for this particular journey, a reason she’s trying to keep her mind separate from her friends’; it is too much, too sharp. Already, before they’ve even started, she is frightened and in pain.

She clenches her jaw, shivering hard. “Doesn’t feel like before. Even if she’s not the one who hurt me, she...”

“I know. But it’ll be okay.” She releases Sandy’s hand, stretches up to cup her face instead, tender and so warm. “It’s only a memory. It’s over and it’s finished. And it can’t... it _won’t_ hurt you again. I promise.”

Sandy turns her face to the side, leans into the curve of her palm. She wants so badly to believe that it’s true, that there is no pain, only knowledge and learning, but she can’t. Years upon years of deception and deceit and danger have taught her never to overlook a lie, to always peer as deeply as she can into the meaning in every word she hears. 

Words carry beauty beyond measure — she remembers that now, happy lessons lost and forgotten with everything else, nothing left but the lingering love of holding a pen — but even the most beautiful things can inflict terrible pain if left unchecked.

“Dishonesty doesn’t become you, Tripitaka,” she whispers. Lets the contact linger for another moment, the protective warmth of Tripitaka’s fingertips against her jaw, her thumb over the corner of her mouth, a soundless echo of the few promises she can keep. Then, a little hesitant and a little hopeful, she pulls away and steps into the cell. “Can we begin, Shaman?”

He jolts, looking up as though startled. It’s an odd look on him.

“Impatience will not make the process swifter,” he says roughly.

“I know that. But I’m...” _No_. She will not admit that she is frightened. Not to him, and certainly not to Locke. Even if it’s obvious from her face, she will not shame herself by saying it. “Surely you’re ready?”

Locke rolls her eyes at both of them, bemused and exaggeratedly bored. “He’s squeamish,” she grumbles. “Because I’m a demon or some bloody nonsense. He thinks I can’t handle a little psychic pain. Thinks he can’t handle inflicting it. Bloody weakling.”

Sandy looks sharply at the Shaman. “ _You’re_ afraid?”

“I am cautious.” He exhales deeply, carefully. Sandy recognises the breathing techniques he taught her on the journey here, for when the madness in her head became unbearable. “That is all. But if you will insist on charging into untested waters without taking the proper precautions...” He sighs; his control wavers. “As you wish.”

“Finally,” Locke mutters. “I keep telling him I’m not scared of a little pain, but the daft fool won’t listen. As arrogant as your Monkey King, he is. Thinks he knows what’s best for everyone else, and won’t hear a damn word to the contrary.”

Sandy sighs. “He’s more compassionate than he’d like to be,” she says. She could be speaking about either one of them, she realises, Monkey or the Shaman. “He’ll never admit it, but he cares about the suffering of others. It’s a burden for him.”

The Shaman glares, nostrils flaring, naturally assuming she’s speaking only about him. “Lies. Everything I am, everything I was made to be... my existence was forged on the suffering of weak-minded gods like you. _Caring_ —” He spits the word out like a snake spitting venom. “—is a weakness I can ill afford.”

Perhaps it is simply fatigue making his voice tremble, the effect of what he’s already been forced to do and the dread of what he’s about to. But looking at his face, Sandy somehow doubts it.

“Maybe,” she says. “But I think you do anyway.”

He flushes hot, and a fierce burst of anger sweeps across his face, chasing away the tremor.

“We begin now,” he growls, furious. “Unless you are trying to make me change my mind.”

Sandy, needing no further prompting, swiftly shuts her mouth.

And so they begin again. Settled inside the cell, all four of them, with Monkey standing guard outside. And it is so much more frightening than it should be, exposing herself like this inside a prison cell, the cold floor and the dank walls, all cramped and overcrowded. Sandy feels claustrophobic here; her pulse hammers against her throat, her ribcage, her nerves. She feels trapped, she feels—

“I’ve got you,” Tripitaka whispers, locking their fingers together.

Sandy can’t help herself. Overwhelmed, she lets out a whimper.

“Don’t let go,” she squeaks. “Please, Tripitaka, don’t let me go.”

Tripitaka leans in, pressing a tender kiss to her clammy forehead.

“Never,” she says.

And Sandy nods and trembles and tries with every ounce of strength she has to keep breathing, to hold on to the ground beneath her, to keep the world from lurching in time with her terror. And she clings desperately to Tripitaka’s hand, holds on as tight as she can for as long as she can, and she squeezes her eyes shut when the Shaman moves to stand over her, and she prays that the walls won’t start to close in.

And then she’s floating again, drifting and tetherless in the way she’s slowly coming to recognise, alone but for the Shaman’s voice inside her head, whispering words she doesn’t understand. And the fear drips and pools in her stomach, sour and sickly, and her chest is flooded with ice and water and it hurts and she hurts and she feels and she feels and—

 _And_ —

**


	14. Chapter 14

**

_“If you want something done right, do it yourself.”_

_Words to live by, those. And Locke had done that for long enough by now that she should’ve bloody well known better._

_Should’ve realised that Pigsy, bless his well-meaning little heart, wouldn’t have the stomach to do what was necessary. Scared of confrontation, that was his trouble. Didn’t like to argue, didn’t care to push people too hard, didn’t want to do anything that might make someone dislike him for a minute or two._

_Made him a good choice, most of the time. He was an easy-going sort of fellow, a gentle giant, kindly enough that the humans trusted him even when they knew whose bed he warmed. Good at defusing tension, good at getting what he wanted without shedding too much blood. Big and broad in all directions, he cut an intimidating figure, enough that most people gave up straight away, handing over whatever — whoever — he wanted without a word of dissent._

_It only became a problem when they didn’t. When his gentle ‘encouragement’ and big strapping shoulders weren’t enough to incite loyalty. When he couldn’t wrangle what he wanted just by smiling and cracking his knuckles._

_She should have guessed, all things considered, that Monica would be that kind of trouble. Always was, even when she had no cause to be. And this—_

_Well. If the rumours were true, this was definitely cause for trouble. A whole bloody mess of trouble._

_Locke never imagined she’d see the day. A living, breathing god baby. Hypothetical at this point, to be fair, but even so. Born into the new world as if it belonged, as if its sorry lot weren’t already extinct in everything but the name. Amazing if true, still troublesome if not. Either way, it wasn’t something a smart, self-respecting demon could afford to ignore._

_It made her wonder, too. If it was true, if it was even half-true, were there others out there too? Tiny little half-formed vermin crawling about in the ashes and bones of their dying bloodlines, wailing infants and whining children with no idea what they were or what it meant? Stupid little things, all, just ripe for the corrupting._

_Would be, anyway, if Pigsy could do his damned job for once._

_To his credit, he had the sense to look abashed this time. Must have realised that it was a dangerous move, crawling back home empty-handed, letting that blasted tavern wench talk down to him like she had any right. Must have realised, somewhere between turning tail and coming back home, that she would be furious._

_With him, of course, and not for the first time — she must’ve lectured him a thousand times by now about that nasty little habit of picking diplomacy over necessity — but with Monica too, for having the audacity to assume she got a say in what happened on her so-called ‘property’._

_“I warned her there’d be trouble,” Pigsy was blathering, staring down at his boots like they could save him from her wrath, like they ever had before._

_Locke growled her disappointment. “Words are cheap, love. Thought I taught you better than that.” It was harder than it should have been, keeping a tough tone when he was pouting like that, adorable and sullen and defensive. “Have to learn to follow through on your threats, my sweet, or else they’ll never take you seriously. You should know that by now.”_

_He opened his mouth, then sighed and closed it again. “Yeah.”_

_“Take a hard line, and they’ll never dare answer back. You’ll be sparing them more pain in the long run.”_

_“I know. Yeah.”_

_Lesson learned — again — if the look on his face was anything to go by. Still, it was once too often, and this was too bloody important to screw it up all with his usual soft-heartedness._

_She’d have to give him a strict talking-to one of these days, make him see the damage his so-called bloody ‘compassion’ was doing. Would have to remind him, in no uncertain terms, that his little moments of weakness were a reflection of her, that it wouldn’t — couldn’t — stand. That if he wanted to keep getting the perks of his position, he’d have to start doing something to earn them._

_But that was a conversation for a later date, when there weren’t more pressing matters to attend._

_For now..._

_“You’re sure she was lying? I mean, you’re absolutely certain?”_

_“Definitely. Like she really thought I wouldn’t be able to sense...”_

_He cut himself off sharply, clearing his throat, like he thought he could erase the words he’d already said by clamping his lips shut on the ones still to come. Adorable, Locke thought, that he still believed he had secrets worth keeping from her, or that she wouldn’t have dragged them out of him long before now if she’d wanted them. Adorable, if bloody stupid, that he still tried so hard to forget who he’d crawled into bed with._

_She shook off the thought. Too close to fondness, and that was something she couldn’t afford when talking business._

_“Well,” she said with a sigh, “she’s gone and bloody done it now, hasn’t she?” And she let a glint of regret show on her face, just enough to fool him into thinking she felt it. “I don’t hold with liars, my sweet. And I definitely don’t hold with people trying to hide things from me.”_

_“Yeah, I know.”_

_“Sets a bad example. Sets a precedent. Can’t have that, now, can we?”_

_“I...” He clenched his jaw. “No.”_

_So defeated, like a little kicked puppy. Like he’d really been hoping to avoid conflict over something so important. Locke wanted to cuff him for that, to remind him in no uncertain terms that he could’ve avoided the messiness himself if he’d just had the courage to show a little backbone when he’d had the chance._

_All he had to do was shove the wench out of the way, find the whelp, and bring it back. Monica could bleat and whine all she wanted, but her property hadn’t belonged to her for a very long time. She wasn’t daft; she knew as well as anyone that it was Locke’s name on the door, just like it was her name on everything else in this nothing little town. She would’ve taken the loss, or else she would’ve thrown herself on her sword and died, but either way it was nothing she wouldn’t have expected. Pigsy had to know that._

_Likely did, at that. Maybe that was why he was so cut up about it. Knew that the blood on his hands would be his own doing this time. A lesson worth learning, Locke thought, if it meant he wouldn’t do it again._

_Still, she held on to her disappointment, kept the indignation burning on her face like a fresh coat of paint, and nudged him towards the door with a click of her tongue._

_“C’mon, then,” she snapped. “Get a shift on.”_

_He hesitated, as she knew he would. “Can’t we—”_

_“Of course not, you daft fool. If you know she’s lying, you can bet she’ll know you know. She’ll have the little beast squirrelled away somewhere else before you can blink if you sit back and give her half a minute.” Already halfway out, she turned to look him in the eye. Steady, sober, with significance. “Bring your weapon this time, eh, my love?”_

_And she slammed the door behind her, hard and fast, so she wouldn’t have to watch his face crumple._

*

_They hit the tavern in the middle of the night._

_Best time for a raid, that. Minimal disruption, few witnesses to bribe, blackmail or bully into silence. Locke wasn’t often one for subtlety, but she’d learned over the years that there were moments where it paid off. Dealing with a troublemaking tavern owner and a hypothetical but potentially volatile god-baby was definitely one of them._

_Pigsy hammered on the door, pounding as loud as he could in the midnight dark. Loud enough to scare anyone senseless, assuming they had any sense to speak of in the first place._

_Monica, apparently, did not._

_Not exactly news, that. Locke had tussled with her enough times before to not be surprised when she tore the door open — almost yanking the blasted thing off its hinges — and stood there glowering like thunder in her nightclothes._

_“What time do you call this?” she barked, fire in her eyes. “There’s good people trying to sleep, you know.”_

_Locke stood her ground. Hands on her hips, conveniently keeping Pigsy in front of her. He might be a puppy with no teeth to speak of, but his size and presence both spoke for themselves._

_“You know what we’re here for,” she said flatly. “So why don’t you open up and let us in, eh? Be a lot easier for you if you’re co-operative.” She leered, showing her teeth. “A lot more fun for us if you’re not.”_

_Pigsy grimaced, giving away his opinion on the subject. Locke tutted under her breath; she’d really have to talk with him about that one of these days. He’d only cause more trouble by letting his bleeding heart show in moments like this. He wasn’t the brightest candle in the sconce, true enough, but even he had to realise that losing his nerve in the middle of a damn heist would only ever end in more bloodshed and more misery for all of them._

_“Get out,” Monica barked. Unsurprising, certainly not unexpected, but annoying just the same. Locke felt her temper flare. “Come back in the morning. Or, better still, don’t come back at all. This is my home, you bloody hooligans. You can’t just come waltzing—”_

_“Oh, can’t we?” She shouldered past Pigsy, standing there as useless as a wet rag, and muscled her way right into Monica’s personal space. “You know as well as I do that a word from me could send this place crashing to the ground. Is that what you really want?”_

_“Go ahead and try it,” Monica sneered. “I’m sure the people will love you for it. Even more than they already do, that is...”_

_Locke swallowed the urge to resort to violence, to getting her own hands dirty; she was better than that, dammit._

_“Look,” she said, with seething patience. “We know what you’re hiding. You’re a worse bloody liar than him—” She glanced back, elbowing Pigsy pointedly in the stomach. “—and a damn sight less pretty about it, too. So you can either hand over the little brat and I’ll turn a blind eye to your dishonesty and disrespect, or you can keep playing the fool and we’ll turn this dump upside-down looking for it.”_

_“It?” Teeth bared, Monica gave her a shove. Rough and with surprising strength, but Locke was unmoveable. “That’s a bloody child you’re talking about, not a bit of furniture, you heartless—”_

_She froze, still as a corpse, and clamped a hand over her mouth._

_Foolish, pointless. Like she could hide the truth she’d already spoken by stopping herself from saying more. It did no good, of course; the damage was already done. Predictable, as ever, she only needed a little anger to let it all slip, her feelings boiling over and giving away the very thing they were rising up to protect._

_Locke knew a great deal about how to use and manipulate people, but this particular lesson hit especially close to home; she’d fallen prey to it enough times herself to know just how destructive a good fit of rage could be. Nothing made a person lose their senses quicker than hate, except maybe love. Both stupid. Both lessons Locke had learned too well._

_Now, though, watching them work to her advantage, she smiled._

_“Out of the way,” she said, voice keen as a blade, body like a rock as she forced her way past the babbling tavern wench. “If you value your life.”_

_Trailing miserably behind, she heard Pigsy mumble a half-hearted apology. She’d have to speak with him about that too, when this was all over._

_For now, though: business._

_“Find it,” she ordered, shoving him further into the tavern. “You make good on this, my sweet, and all the rest will be forgiven.”_

_More or less, she didn’t add._

_He nodded, looking tortured but determined, then shouldered his rake and lumbered his way into the depths of the tavern._

_Locke, meanwhile, spun to parry a furious, careless swing from Monica. Effortless, easy, she didn’t even need to waste a thought on the task. Honestly, human predictability was such a wearying thing._

_“You lay a finger on my property,” Monica hissed, “and I’ll tear you apart.”_

_“Oh, do shut up,” Locke shot back, letting her boredom show. “You’re embarrassing yourself. Your so-called ‘property’ belongs to me. Always has, from the moment I came to town. Surely even you realise that by now.”_

_Monica snarled, lashing out again, blind with fury. Points for effort, Locke supposed, though she had to realise it was like throwing a thimbleful of water onto a blazing fire._

_Whether or not she really was as human as she claimed — and Locke had her doubts about that; the woman never seemed to age, to say nothing of certain other rumours she’s heard — she still didn’t stand a chance against a demon, and this one least of all. Locke hadn’t gotten where she was by sitting on her hands; she’d gotten there by intimidation, seduction, and good old-fashioned violence, and she had no qualms about using any one of them — or, occasionally, all three — to get her way._

_“Over my dead body,” Monica gritted out._

_Impressively, she broke out of Locke’s grip, wriggling free for just long enough to take another swing. Not a second longer, of course, but still._

_Her patience reaching its end, Locke caught her flying fist, then spun and threw her up against the wall. Pinning her in place with a forearm pressed to her neck, she sighed and shook her head. The savagery was a tedious, regrettable thing, but Monica’s lack of manners demanded the same in return. Let Pigsy be the pacifist here, as he always tried to be; Locke took no shame in doing her own dirty work once in a while._

_“That can be arranged,” she said tossing her head. “But why would I want to waste my time with it? A damn bloody mess to clean up, quite frankly, and more paperwork than the likes of you will ever be worth. Better for all of us if you just stay still and let my boy finish the job he should have done the last time he was here.”_

_Clumsy, letting herself sound as frustrated as she felt about that little mishap. And of course the sharp-eared bitch picked up on it._

_“Tough to find good help these days?” she asked with a cold sneer._

_Locke tightened her grip, pressing hard enough that she knew it had to hurt. Just a little reminder, she thought acidly, of who held the real power in this._

_“That whelp had better be here,” she gritted out, all sharp teeth and bone-crunching strength. “Because if it’s not...”_

_Blessedly for them both — and, indeed, for Pigsy — she didn’t get the chance to finish._

_A wail, high and hoarse and horrible, cut through the air. Definitely not one of Pigsy’s, that, and Locke felt her whole body ignite in triumph. Nothing quite like it, the rush of getting what you want and spitting in the face of those who would try their damndest to hide it away and lock it up._

_Another yowl, louder than the first, and then the crash of something solid on something even solider. Pigsy’s voice, rough and ragged, shouting, “Calm down, will you? I’m not going to hurt you!”, and Locke had to laugh, because that was the biggest load of manure she’d heard since Monica told them the place was empty._

_Monica shoved and struggled against her, rage and fear making her stronger than any human had the right to be. Still not strong enough to counter a demon, of course, and Locke pushed her right back with so little effort it hardly bore mentioning._

_“You stay right there,” she gritted out. “If I wasn’t going to give you a thrashing for lying in the first place, you can bet your worthless life I’ll give you one for this.”_

_“You hurt a hair on that girl’s head,” Monica snarled, still struggling uselessly, “and I’ll hunt you down till the end of days.”_

_Locke laughed again, crueller now and rough as a stone. “Didn’t you get the message, dear? Your end of days has already been and gone.”_

_She pressed down hard on Monica’s larynx, counted out a few breathlessly delightful seconds, then finally let her go._

_Monica slumped to the ground the instant she was released, gasping ravenously for air. Embarrassing, really, how little effort was needed to reduce most folks — human or god — to quivering, worthless wrecks. For her part, Locke hadn’t even broken a sweat, but there was the self-righteous tavern wench, half-dead and dishevelled, crushed and humiliated and threatened with worse, and all for what?_

_For the writhing, wailing wreck of a whelp in Pigsy’s arms._

_He emerged from behind the bar, holding the little creature in an iron grip. Hard to tell which of the two of them looked more bloody miserable; the brat was yowling the place down, sobbing and wailing itself half-sick, and Pigsy wore the face of someone who sorely wished the little wretch would just knock him down and run._

_Not that it could have, even if they both tried. Skinny as a rail, breath rasping and rattling in its chest, it was a pitiful little thing with all the strength of a wet towel. Had to realise it didn’t stand a chance, but still it struggled with everything it had in it, kicking and brawling and carrying on like it wasn’t being held fast by a giant even among its own kind._

_It might have been adorable, if Locke were the kind to think that way. Blessedly, she was not, and she had no intention of being sucked in by a tear-streaked baby-face. She took a long step forward, ready with a fist and a threat—_

_And stopped in her tracks as Monica threw herself, again, at her exposed back. “You let her go!”_

_Locke spun, turning the threat on one more deserving. “You’ll stay down if you know what’s good for you.”_

_“Like hell I will!” She staggered forward again, weaving dizzily. “Sandy girl!”_

_“Really?” Locke quirked a brow, amused and disappointed in almost equal measure. “That’s the name you went with? Bloody sad on all counts, that.”_

_Monica ignored her, of course. Throwing herself at Pigsy this time, lashing out with both fists, either unaware or uncaring that she was outmatched, outmuscled, and outmanoeuvred, that the home advantage counted for nothing against a god and a demon, against two seasoned fighters on a mission._

_Pigsy, to his credit, shrugged her off without lifting a finger. “Don’t make this harder than it already is,” he sighed. “Please, Monica.”_

_The brat struggled in his arms, yowling and crying, screaming the place down figuratively and very nearly literally too. Locke glared, feeling the hum of magic in the air, the threat of heaviness and danger and the telltale rumbling of a god who couldn’t control itself._

_“Shut it up,” she ordered Pigsy. “Knock it unconscious.”_

_Pigsy’s eyes widened. “She’s a child! I can’t just—”_

_“It’ll bring the bloody roof down on our heads if you don’t.”_

_As if to prove her point, dark clouds gathered above their heads, heavy with rain. As if there was any doubt that this was the creature they were searching for, this sure as hell confirmed it._

_Even Pigsy looked a bit startled, mouth hanging open as he turned his gaze upward. Briefly, Locke wondered what he was like as a kid, if he’d had trouble controlling his powers or if they’d always come as naturally to him as they did now. She didn’t know much about how gods came into their talents — didn’t much care, most of the time — and of course she’d never seen an infant one before. A learning experience for everyone, she supposed, if they could quiet the little brat down for a few seconds._

_Monica turned to Pigsy again. No violence or spite in her this time; by now she’d probably realised it would only cause harm to herself and her precious god-whelp if she tried anything stupid. Breathing hard, as much from emotion as exertion, she whispered, “Let me do it, please.”_

_Pigsy blinked, then looked back to Locke with big wide eyes. He was almost as desperate as Monica, Locke noticed, so damn sure he could keep his hands clean, like they weren’t already filthy. Like he wasn’t already beyond redemption, like he hadn’t been for a few dozen lifetimes._

_Still, where was the harm in feeding the delusion some? If it kept him happy, maybe he’d suck it up and actually do his job next time. So, like the benevolent dictator she was, Locke nodded her concession._

_“Try anything stupid, though,” she warned Monica, “and neither one of you leaves here alive.”_

_Smart enough to know when not to pick a fight, Monica nodded. She knelt down in front of Pigsy, imploring him with her eyes to set the brat down on the ground; checking briefly with Locke, who merely shrugged, he did so, keeping his big hands clamped down on its shoulders, precluding any stupid attempts at escape._

_Monica took a deep, shaky breath, then took the kid’s hands in hers. “Don’t you be scared of these low-lives, Sandy girl,” she said. “They’re not worth your fears or your tears.”_

_The little thing whined, clearly dubious. Smart kid, for all its caterwauling._

_“Are they going to hurt me?” it asked in a tiny, hiccupping voice._

_“Not if you don’t give us a reason to,” Locke muttered, mostly to herself._

_Monica shot her a glare, then turned back to her little charge. “If they do,” she said gently, “they’ll have me to answer to. And you know what happens to idiots who cross me.”_

_That seemed to calm it down some. A little of the unnatural pressure bled out from the air, and the relief was so palpable that Locke let Monica’s arrogant bravado slide. Let her tell whatever stupid lies she wanted, if that was what it took to keep the brat quiet and compliant, if it got the bloody thing out the door without bringing down some torrential nightmare from the heavens._

_“I don’t want...” Another whine, and the clouds above grew heavy again; Locke sighed but stayed quiet. “Don’t let them take me, please, I don’t want to go.”_

_“I know you don’t.” Said through clenched teeth; she couldn’t seem to look the kid in the eye. “But it’s only for a little while, I promise, then I’ll get you back.”_

_Locke chuckled. “Expect her to believe that, do you?”_

_Monica turned her head, still holding the whelp by the hands, and glared. No problem looking her in the eye, Locke noted with some amusement._

_“I expect you both to believe it,” she gritted out. “Because it’s the bloody truth. Don’t think I won’t move heaven and earth to get her out of your clutches. You mark my words, you nefarious—”_

_“Yes, yes. That’s enough of that nonsense, I think.” She snapped her fingers at Pigsy. “Be a lamb, would you, and shut her up.”_

_He did, though to her disappointment he did it without striking her down. Would’ve been a sight to behold, that, and made the point quite nicely to the little god-whelp that it couldn’t set any stock by its former guardian’s bold claims. A good lesson, though even Locke had to admit it was probably for the best to defuse this particular situation without violence; she could do without a downpour ruining a perfectly good kidnapping outfit._

_Time enough to break its tiny spirit later, she supposed. For now, though, fast and quick served best. Might not be her idea of a good time, but there was something to be said for the convincing anguish in Pigsy’s eyes when he looked down at Monica and said, “You know how it is...”_

_“Oh, I know, all right.” Her eyes flashed fire, but she let go of the brat’s hands without further argument. Eyes on Pigsy, it was nonetheless clear she wasn’t speaking to him when she added, “The day he grows a backbone, you’ll be in trouble.”_

_True enough. Locke had known that for a long time, though Pigsy didn’t seem to believe it himself. Best thing about him, in truth, was how little he believed in himself, how little he thought he was worth._

_Good for keeping him on a close leash, that, and better for keeping him compliant. If he thought for a second he might have a tenth of the power she knew he did, he could wreak havoc on more than just her enemies. Let him loose, he could bring everything she’d worked for crashing down in the blink of an eye. It spoke volumes about her feelings, such as they were, that she rolled those dice again and again, once more for every night she summoned him to her bed instead of sending him to a prison cell._

_She didn’t deny it. Not in her head and not out loud. Monica wasn’t stupid, and what did it matter anyway when she was toothless? Easy to claim that knowledge was power, but from Locke’s experience it never seemed to match up against raw brawn._

_So, satisfied that there was nothing the wench could do about it, she simply shrugged and said, “Guess it’s my job, then, to make sure that doesn’t happen.”_

_And she snapped her fingers again, powerful and pointed, and watched with a smug smile as Pigsy jolted to attention like the obedient puppy he was._

_“C’mon,” he said to the whelp, a little dazed, like he was shaking himself out of a dream. “You heard what Monica said. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”_

_And he hauled it back up into his arms without another word, holding it so tightly it didn’t have breath to complain._

_Job done, Locke muscled him out of the door. Quick-like, hasty, before that sad kicked-puppy look in his eyes could spread, before it could start to infect the parts of him she still needed on her side._

_No place for regrets, the way they lived; she needed him home and happy, with a belly full of good food and better wine, needed him drunk and dozy enough to forget the darker parts of how he spent his days, the dirty little corners she made him clean up for her. Get him home, get the brat locked up safe and sound, out of sight and out of mind, and all would be well and good._

_Just like it always was._

_She bowed to Monica on her way out, cruel and mocking._

_“Thank you,” she crooned, “for your hospitality and co-operation.”_

_Monica, defeated and utterly humiliated, spat at her feet._

_It was as much a victory as if she’d bowed her head and kissed them._

*

_Back at the palace, the whelp found its voice again._

_More was the bloody pity._

_It took one look at the dank little prison cell that would be its new home, and promptly started bawling. Long and loud and endless, it was enough to drive anyone to murder._

_Feeling a headache approaching, Locke sighed and said, “Told you we should’ve knocked the stupid thing unconscious.”_

_Pigsy ignored her. He set the little brat down in front of the cage doors, crouched down in front of it with his big hands on its shoulders, and said, “Sandy, was it?”_

_Sniffling, it nodded. “That’s what Monica calls me.”_

_Its voice was hoarse, Locke noticed. Shivering, too, and white as death, though that could just as easily be the fright. At least, Locke sorely hoped it was. The last thing she needed was a sick god-baby spreading its bloody germs all over the place._

_Either way, Pigsy didn’t acknowledge it. That, or he was pretending not to see; difficult to say for sure. He could be as unobservant as anyone Locke had ever met, but every now and then his shrewdness surprised her. Hard to tell whether he genuinely hadn’t noticed the kid’s sickly complexion or whether he was just doing a bloody good job of ignoring it. Like he could chase away the hoarseness in its throat and the sweat on its brow if he just pretended hard enough that they weren’t there._

_“Good enough,” he was saying, keeping his voice low and gentle. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I mean, it’s not the nicest place in the world, but it’ll keep you safe.”_

_“Keep us safe, more like,” Locke muttered to herself._

_Sandy gawked up at her, big eyes getting even bigger._

_“Leave it out, will you?” Pigsy grouched, not looking at her. “Can’t you see she’s terrified? At least let me try and make it easier for her.”_

_“Fine, fine. Do whatever you feel is best, my love. But don’t get too attached, yeah? You know full well it’ll still end up the same place as all the rest.”_

_“Stop calling her ‘it’.” His shoulders were as tight as she’d ever seen them. “She’s a person, Locke.”_

_Well, that was debateable. But it wasn’t a debate they were going to have any time soon, not if she could help it. Locke knew well enough that there were some opinions best kept hidden; when you had a god keeping your bed warm, it didn’t pay to let slip every less-than-flattering thought you had about the rest of his sort. ‘You’re the exception, love’ wasn’t likely to go down well._

_“Of course,” she said instead, through gritted teeth. “Carry on, then. Just don’t take up all bloody day with it, yeah?”_

_He rolled his eyes, but didn’t waste his breath arguing. Turning back to the whelp, he said, “You know what you are?”_

_She looked uncertain. “My father says I’m a demon. Monica says I’m a god.” And there it was again: the quivering lip, the welling tears, the bloody waterworks. “I just want to be normal.”_

_“Oh boy.” Pigsy worked his jaw for a few seconds, then spoke very carefully. “That... that’s probably not going to happen any time soon. But it’s okay. Okay? It’s okay. Because this place...” He gestured at the big barred door and tried to smile. “I built this place with my own two hands. Especially for people like you.”_

_Sandy blinked. Not the brightest spark, this one. Probably for the best, that, though it didn’t settle Locke’s patience any._

_“Don’t understand,” she mumbled, furrowing her little brow. “Why couldn’t I just stay at the tavern with Monica? Why can’t I go home? I don’t want this, I don’t want any of this, I don’t—”_

_“I know. Believe me, I get it. But it’s not...” He blew out a frustrated breath, visibly struggling to explain the nuances of gods, demons, and all the rest of it to someone too young and dumb to ever understand. “What you are... you’re very powerful. At least, you will be. Soon, when you’re all grown up. You have a lot of power inside you, and it’s dangerous. So while you’re still figuring it all out, we’re going to keep you in here. So you don’t hurt anyone. Understand?”_

_“No.” Sandy sniffled miserably. “Can’t I just promise not to do that? Don’t want to hurt anyone anyway.”_

_Predictably, and infuriatingly, Pigsy turned to look at Locke, eyes as huge and hopeful as the bloody brat’s. “Well, uh...”_

_“No,” Locke said, flat and toneless. “Your promises aren’t worth a thing.”_

_Pigsy sighed, cleared his throat. “She means, uh... she means that you might not always be able to control yourself, even if you try really hard. So it’s best for everyone if we keep you somewhere we know you’re safe. Don’t you want that? If you really don’t want to hurt anyone, isn’t it better if you’re in a place where you can’t, even by accident?”_

_“No.” She whimpered, then coughed. “It’s dark in there. And cold.”_

_“I know. But I’ll see about bringing you some blankets. Maybe a—”_

_“Bloody hell,” Locke muttered, unable to hold her tongue any longer. “Soft as a feather pillow, you are. Just toss it in there and be done with it. It’s not your bloody kid, you fool.”_

_He stiffened at that, tensing all over. Well, no surprise if it struck a nerve; she wondered how long it had been since he’d seen one of his kind in its infancy. He was a damn sight older than she was, old enough to remember a time when his sort were thriving and hers weren’t, when gods were born like normal creatures, when they didn’t have to claw their way up through the dregs of mortality just to survive._

_Must bring back memories of the ‘good old days’, she supposed, seeing an infant coming into its powers for the first time. And if it filled him with certain instincts, protective or paternal? Well, then, she’d just have to nip them in the bud before they got a chance to bloom._

_Blessedly, he recovered himself before she felt the need to crack the whip. He stood, sighing again, then held the cell door open. “In you go,” he said, as kind as he could under the circumstances. “It’s safe, I promise.”_

_Sandy whined, quaking like a leaf from head to toe. “I don’t want to.”_

_“Tough luck.” Locke took a long, menacing step forward. “In. Now.”_

_Worked like a charm, that did; all of a sudden, the pitiful little thing couldn’t get in there fast enough. Amazing, Locke mused, how much more effective intimidation was than all that touchy-feely nonsense._

_Pigsy closed the door behind her, looking anguished. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said to Sandy, ignoring Locke’s raucous laughter. “I’ll be back later to check up on you and bring you some food.”_

_On the brink of tears yet again, Sandy blurted out, “No fish.”_

_Locke laughed again, louder. “How’d you like that? Been a prisoner all of two minutes and already it’s making demands.”_

_Pigsy ignored her. “No fish,” he promised, gentle enough to raze Locke’s nerves. “Now, try and get some rest, okay?”_

_Rather tellingly, he didn’t stick around to see her reaction. Just turned tail and bolted out of there like the bloody coward he was, leaving Locke to lock the place up herself._

_“Bad manners,” she muttered to herself, then shook the bars of the cell as she moved to leave. “Keep quiet in there, you hear?”_

_Gazing up at her with huge, tear-darkened eyes, Sandy whispered, “I’ll try.”_

_But she’d already started wailing again before Locke was even out the door._

*

_Back in the comfort of their bedchamber, she rounded on Pigsy._

_“You really think you were doing that little monster a favour?” she demanded, furious. “Playing pretend that everything’s all sweet and lovely? Letting it think it’ll get out of here in one piece?” She fought down the urge to shake some sense into him, settling instead for a hard glare, letting her eyes inflict the violence on her behalf. “You’re just setting it up for a great big bloody mess of pain.”_

_Pigsy shook his head. He was angry, upset, in a way he very rarely got with her._

_“Pain is your job,” he said, in a low, dark voice. “Mine is making things easier for everyone involved. And for the love of anything, stop calling her ‘it’.”_

_“I told you not to get attached.” She turned her back to him, so she wouldn’t have to see the rage and grief on his pretty face. “Told you to think of it as just another job.”_

_“How am I supposed to do that? She’s a bloody child—”_

_“It’s a god, you soft-hearted fool. And you know what we do to gods.”_

_He turned away when she looked at him, shoulders shuddering, unable to face the simple truth. Tortured now, even more than he was back in the tavern. Like he wasn’t trying to keep his grief and pain under control any more, like he thought it was safe to let it all out now they were alone. Locke would have to relieve him of that delusion, remind him in no uncertain terms that nowhere was safe for that sort of nonsense._

_“She’s a child,” he said again, anguish thickening his voice. “She’s known what she is for, what, five minutes? You can’t act like she’s just another...”_

_He trailed off, sounding stricken and devastated all over again._

_Locke, never one to pass up the opportunity to use someone else’s grief for her own benefit, sneered. “Just another what, exactly?” she pressed. “Just another god? Another one of your kind? Like you haven’t already sent dozens of them to their doom.” She laughed, as calloused as she could manage while knowing that he was in pain. “You think the blood on your hands runs faster because she’s a bit younger than the rest?”_

_“A bit younger? A bit?” He looked queasy. “She’s a baby, Locke! Practically a newborn. Alone in the world, no-one to help her with her transformation, no-one to make her feel safe...”_

_“Good. Because she’s not bloody safe. None of you lot are.”_

_That stopped him in his tracks. He blanched almost as white as the kid. “That’s—”_

_But of course he couldn’t finish. What lies could he possibly tell himself that she wouldn’t happily tear to pieces?_

_“Uh huh. Forgot that part again, did you?” She kept the sneer off her face this time, reminding herself that his loyalty was worth more than his doubts. “Forgot that not every god has it as cushy and comfortable as you do. That not all of your kind are quite so eager to sell themselves, body and soul, for a warm bed and a bit of company.”_

_Apparently he really had forgotten — and not for the first time — because he let out a yell and turned away again, hiding his face completely._

_Anger or shame, maybe a little bit of both; she couldn’t tell just from his shoulders and she wasn’t sure she’d care either way. Too often he forgot himself and his place in the new world order, forgot that he had sacrificed his dignity and his moral code a long time ago; he’d made a deal with the devil, and too often he tried to convince himself the price wasn’t so high. Too often he tried to convince himself that he was somehow free of her sins, that what he did was all about necessity, that it was survival drawing him to her and not pure unabashed decadence._

_Locke was willing to carry a lot. Hands soaked in dirt and blood, her dark deeds casting shadows wherever she went. Fine by her; she liked the reputation. But if he thought for one second he’d be in the clear when the reckoning came knocking, just because he could rationalise it away... well, he’d be in for a bloody rude awakening. She’d make sure of it._

_He knew better than to argue, though, or maybe she’d just reminded him of the things he couldn’t deny; either way, his shoulders slumped in that telling, familiar way they had of signalling surrender. Clever boy, he knew too well that all her mirrors showed his reflection too. He didn’t have a leg to stand on, not when his hands had captured nearly as many gods as hers. Not when his were the ones that had made the prison that kept them all neatly caged._

_He may not like it, may not even really believe that his sins were the same colour as hers, but there it was, and he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t hauled the whelp out of that tavern and into his home-made prison with his own two hands._

_When he finally faced her again, he was a little calmer. Contrite, almost, though he’d never call it that. And when he spoke to her, though he would never debase himself by actually apologising — even when they both knew he’d be the worse for it if he didn’t — still there was a quietude to him that said he’d given up hope, for the time being at least, on making this an argument._

_“You don’t have to sell her, you know,” he said. Careful, cautious, like a mouse trying to navigate a safe path through a maze of traps. “Could keep her, raise her properly? She could be a useful asset, if you trained her the right way.”_

_Locke chuckled. It was a good pitch. Clever, appealing to her love of power and control, but he’d overplayed his hand: too fast and too eager, and in any case she knew him too well. As long as she’d known him, he’d never been able to cover up his stupid bleeding heart, and for all his talent in other departments he lacked the wit to ever convince her this was anything other than a plea for mercy._

_Still, he’d tried. Made the effort to appear as cutthroat as she wanted him to be, and that warranted a reward._

_“Tempting,” she lied, and watched his face light up. Let it hang for a moment, let the optimism burn... then, quick as a whip, she snuffed it out like a bloody candle. “But two of you under my roof? That’d be asking for trouble. I prefer to keep my assets manageable.”_

_He grimaced, resigned but not at all surprised. “At least let me spend some time with her.”_

_Still a little too hopeful, but at least he kept himself well-heeled this time. Asking, not demanding; good boy. Locke tilted her head, feigned ignorance. “What are you on about now?”_

_“I just...’ He sighed. “The way the world is right now, I’m likely the only other god she’ll ever meet. She might have questions, I might have answers. Might be able to make her a little less...”_

_“Pathetic? Useless?”_

_“Scared! Bloody hell, Locke.” He threw up his hands, disgusted, then caught himself and pressed on. “Just... let me talk with her a bit. Try and engage with her, you know? Set her mind at ease before we—”_

_“Before we sell her to the highest bidder and make ourselves rich on the spoils?”_

_She leered, not relishing his distress nearly as much as she wanted him to believe. He squirmed, visibly upset, and said, “Locke,” again, higher and tighter, like it was her fault he was a heart-soft weakling._

_“Just reminding you of the facts, love,” she said, as kindly as she could. “I mean, you know it’s all pointless, right? I just don’t want you getting your heart broken over this.”_

_“I know what I’m getting myself into,” he said, in a tone that made it really bloody obvious he didn’t._

_“Oh, you do?” She looked him up and down, making no attempt to hide her pity or her disgust. “You really think you can pull it off? Play nice, ‘engage’ with it, ‘put its mind at ease’, or whatever else you gods do with your offspring, knowing all the while that it’ll never see another sunrise?”_

_“She might.” It was a whine, as petulant as she’d ever heard him. “I mean, she’s so small. Impressionable, corruptible. As far as we know, she could be the first newborn god in captivity. Might make her worth more than just another...” He coughed, unwilling to say the word; it was no secret that he didn’t like to think too deeply about what became of the rest of his sorry species. “Well. You never know.”_

_Locke chuckled, light but chiding. “My adorable little optimist. You hold on to that, eh? Convince yourself, maybe you’ll convince the brat too, enough for it to stop its caterwauling and give us all some peace.”_

_If he caught the sarcasm in her tone, he pretended he didn’t. “So you don’t mind?” Tentative, almost fearful, like he was afraid of showing too much hope lest it rear up and bite him; wouldn’t be the first time. “You won’t... I don’t know, you won’t call it treason and have me shipped off with all the others if I spend some time with her? You won’t think we’re conspiring against you or something?”_

_“Not unless you do,” Locke countered. “Like you keep saying, it’s just a whelp. Fresh from the womb, or whatever you gods crawl out of when you’re born.” Pigsy opened his mouth to tell her, then seemed to think better of it; Locke rolled her eyes and pressed on. “What harm could the little abomination do? Drown me in its tears?”_

_If Pigsy had an opinion on that, he had the brains not to share it._

*

_She kept a close eye on him, of course._

_Common sense, that, whether she trusted him or not._

_Two gods in one room, one smart enough to see the writing on the wall, smart enough to climb into bed with a demon while still holding his bloodlines close, the other young and corruptible and not in control of its new powers. Only a damn fool would let those two alone unsupervised, and if there was one thing Locke was not it was a fool. She knew how the wind blew for his kind, just as she knew the way it was blowing for her own. Take no chances, she’d learned long ago, and especially with a bleeding heart like his._

_She wasn’t subtle about it. Couldn’t be, even if she wanted to; she had many talents — a great many talents — but she knew her weaknesses just as well, and strength and intimidation didn’t often lend themselves to stealth; she lived to be seen, couldn’t stay hidden even if they paid her to. Besides which, he’d have to be a whole lot stupider than he was not to assume that she’d keep an eye on him anyway, all things considered._

_She took care of business first. Always had, always would. Scribbled off a note to the Jade Mountain, explaining the situation in the broadest possible terms. Enough detail that the big-shot on the throne would realise the whelp’s worth, not enough to give him a reason to get bold about it. Damn good money in it, for both of them, if he was smart._

_And if he wasn’t..._

_Well, much as he wanted to believe he was, he wasn’t the only demon out there with a heavy coin purse and a taste for turning gods into gibbering brain-dead slaves. If he didn’t want to pay the kid’s value, someone else surely would._

_Plenty of time to kill while she waited for a reply, though. And more than enough time for Pigsy to get himself in hot water, bonding and ‘connecting’ with the little beast, getting himself attached despite her best bloody warnings._

_She knew it would happen, of course. Didn’t make it any easier to watch. Still, the burden was his to bear; she’d warned him, hadn’t she?_

_She doubted she’d ever understand that side of him. The soft heart, the sugary sweetness, the way he looked at the skinny little thing like it was a star fallen down to the earth. Like it was something precious, something to be nurtured and protected, not a troublesome little noise-maker who couldn’t seem to stop crying. How anyone could look at something so wretched and see anything worth caring about, she simply couldn’t fathom._

_It was a hell of a sight, though. Pigsy being soft, being sweet and tender and patient. Talking to the whelp like it really was a person, like he really did see his own flesh and blood when he looked in its tear-filled eyes._

_Locke was not the sentimental type. Far from it, in fact, and a bloody good thing too, because for all that she cared nothing for a wailing wretch of a miniature god, she cared entirely too much for the giant cradling it._

_Not that she’d ever admit such a thing, of course. Not that she’d ever let anyone — least of all him — see the way his softness made her ache a little inside, for things they both knew could never be. Devotion, protection, loyalty and love for something so much smaller and still somehow bigger than him._

_Them._

_No._

_Him, the bloody sentimental idiot._

_Him. Just him. Had to be._

_No room for ‘them’ in a bloody mess like this._

_Certainly no room for her._

_So she watched. Unhidden, in plain view, or she would be if ever bothered to look up and glance over his shoulder._

_Never did, of course. Not once, not in all the time he spent down there. The second he was inside that cell, he had eyes for nothing and nobody except the miserable little whelp living there. Like the rest of the world, Locke included, could just fade away and disappear for all he cared._

_Locke did not appreciate that — didn’t take kindly to being ignored in any situation, really — but even she couldn’t deny that in this case his blindness was probably for the best._

_He talked to Sandy like she was a real child, a demon or a human, someone who might live long enough to grow up and learn about herself, someone who had a future worth dreaming about. It had always been a challenge for him to see the difference, to look at another god and realise that it was doomed just because of what it was. She’d tried time and time again to break him of that idealistic little habit, to teach him that he couldn’t think of himself in those terms any more — that he would only be free from his guilt and grief if he cast that old identity aside — but that was easier said than done._

_Blessedly, though she doubted Pigsy would realise it, Sandy was a damn sight less enthralled by him than he was by her._

_Locke had no idea why that surprised him, in truth. Shared blood or not, he was still one of her captors, one of the monsters who had hauled her out of her nice warm tavern and locked her up in the cold and dark. Hilarious, frankly, that even after everything he’d done, everything he saw when he looked in the mirror, he still couldn’t see that side of himself. Still couldn’t see the blood on his hands, the dirt on his knees, the twisted things he’d done._

_Sandy did, quick-witted little thing._

_The first time he approached her, she shrank back against the wall, frenzied and terrified, and mumbled, “Don’t hurt me,” over and over again until he had no choice but to back off and give her some room to breathe._

_He looked utterly crestfallen, like he really thought it would go differently, like he truly expected her to want him there. Like he figured she’d be half as stupid as he was._

_“I won’t hurt you,” he promised in a ragged whisper. “I just want to talk.”_

_“You’re one of them,” she croaked, still raspy and hoarse._

_“No.” He tried to breathe slowly, soothingly, but it didn’t seem to calm either of them. “No, I’m like you.”_

_She blinked, startled. Frowned up at him with big wet eyes, bottom lip trembling. She wanted to believe him, Locke could tell, wanted so badly to think she wasn’t completely alone in this dank nightmare she’d been thrown into, but instinct and experience were screaming at her to be afraid of the one who’d brought her here and locked her up in the first place. A smart girl, Locke thought grudgingly, for all her cursed god’s blood._

_At long last, after an eternity spent grappling with the thing, she shrank back even further and rasped, “Not true.”_

_“Yeah, it is.” He spun in a slow, careful circle, still keeping his distance. “I know we don’t look very much alike, but I’m a god too, just like you.”_

_Eyes narrowed, suspicion overriding the usual urge to burst into tears, Sandy shook her head._

_“You’re not like me. Can’t be. You’re out there, and I’m in here. You get to do whatever you like but I get sent away and taken away and put in the cold and the dark and you’re the one who did it and...” Speaking the words, of course, made the tears start run again. “No, no, no. You’re not like me at all.”_

_Locke fought a chuckle. Couldn’t very well deny it, could he? None of it._

_Pigsy, no doubt realising the same thing, looked even more heartbroken. “It’s not the same,” he told her. “I’ve been a god for a very long time, and you’re still very small.”_

_Sandy furrowed her brow. “Being small makes you less dangerous,” she said slowly. “Not more. You’re huge, massive, and you hurt people to get me here. You should be in a cage and I should be with Monica.”_

_“It’s more complicated than that.” He sighed, frustrated and perhaps a little annoyed with himself. “Being small... when you’re a god, being small means you’re unstable. It means you don’t know enough about your powers to control them or use them safely. You understand?”_

_“No, I do know!” She pouted, still tearful but determined now as well, folding her skinny arms across her skinnier chest. “Monica taught me!”_

_Pigsy started a little at that. “Monica taught you? Really?”_

_She nodded, urgent and feverish. “She knows lots of things.”_

_Aye, Locke thought, I’ll bet she does, the sly ageless witch._

_Recovering himself, apparently oblivious to the implications of what he’d just heard, Pigsy cleared his throat and pressed on. “I’m sure she does,” he said, a little too tactfully. “But she doesn’t know enough about this. And I’d know: I’ve been a god for centuries, and even I’m still learning new things. Trust me. It’s safer for everyone if you just stay in here and—”_

_“No!” The word was a wail, high and terribly hoarse; Locke’s own throat constricted a little in empathy. "I haven’t made it rain for days now. I can keep the water inside of me, even when the chill is really awful.” As if to demonstrate, she burst into an explosive coughing fit, slumping back against the wall when it was done. “I’m not dangerous any more. I promise I’m not. I’m good, I promise, I’m good—”_

_“Take it easy.” He sounded a little panicked now, and with bloody good reason; for all her claims of control, the air was growing heavy again, even in the relative safety of the cell. “I know you don’t want to be in here, Sandy, but that’s... I’m afraid it’s not something that’ll change any time soon. I’m sorry. But I promise to try and make it as easy as possible for you.”_

_Sandy narrowed her eyes. Bright enough to sense the danger of her position, bright enough not to take anything he said at face value, but still curious, seemingly in spite of herself._

_“How?” she whispered._

_He relaxed, just slightly; if she didn’t know him as well as she did, Locke might not have noticed. “Well, uh, if you’ve got any questions, maybe I could answer them. I’ll bet you’ve never met another god before, huh? Just Monica, and she’s... well. Not.”_

_Of course she bristled at that. No surprise, there; Locke had seen bigger and stronger souls fall for Monica’s tough love in much less time than she’d been harbouring the kid, and for much less reason than a warm bed and a hot meal. It made her a threat, made her more dangerous than a hundred god-whelps put together, and it gave Locke an extra little kick of pleasure every time she got an excuse to shake the tavern down. For that, at least, she supposed she owed the brat a thank-you._

_“No,” Sandy mumbled, after a tense beat. “Never met another god before.”_

_Pigsy smiled wider. “Well, now you have.”_

_She studied him for a long, long time. “No, I haven’t.”_

_“Sure you have. I—”_

_“No.” She swallowed. Even from outside, Locke could hear the roughness in her throat, the rattle in her chest. Pain, much richer than fear. “Say it as many times as you like, but I’m not stupid. I know you’re really a demon.”_

_“I...” He chuckled, but it was strained. “No, I’m not.”_

_“Yes, you are. Have to be. That’s the real reason why you get to be free while I’m locked up in a cage. Monica says...” Her voice broke; a couple of tears fell, but she got herself back under control with relative ease. “Monica says all the gods are in hiding. Says they can’t come out as long as demons rule the world. Says it’s not safe any more for anyone who isn’t a demon.” She whimpered, sniffled, then composed herself again. “Says it would have been better for me if I really had been a demon. But I wasn’t, so I had to hide. Then you found me and took me away and put me in a cage just for being what I am. A god wouldn’t do that to another god.”_

_She’s got you there, big fella, Locke thought, rather smugly._

_Pigsy, looking utterly devastated, turned his face away. “It’s more complicated than,” he said, seemingly as much to convince himself as the kid. “You’re too young to understand. The world’s been this way for a very long time.”_

_She looked up at him, breathing raggedly. Then, quiet and sad, she said, “I don’t think I want to understand.”_

_“I...” He bowed his head; his shoulders shook. “I don’t blame you.”_

_Sandy sniffled again, and the air around them grew wet and heavy. “I just want it all to go away,” she whined. “Don’t want to be like this. Don’t want to know any more about why I need to hide or why I’m supposed to get locked up and hurt and scared. I just want to be like I was before, human and normal and not like this.”_

_“Yeah.” He sighed, deep and low, then moved to crouch gently in front of her. Keeping his body low, he reached for her face, gently cupping her cheek and wiping away the stray salt. “I know you do. I know.”_

_And something in his voice, or maybe his closeness, must have struck a chord with something deep inside the little creature, because without another word she threw herself into his arms and burst into tears._

_Locke watched for a moment more, pressure squeezing her chest, then she turned around and slunk silently away._

*

_It was three days before she got word back from the Jade Mountain._

_Three days of watching Pigsy try to bond with his little prisoner, three days of watching his myriad successes and failures, three days of not trying to stay hidden but still not knowing if he knew or cared that she was there._

_He never talked about it; that was the kicker. Never mentioned that he’d been there, that they’d spent time together, that he’d been getting his heart systematically kicked to pieces by a kid too young and scared to even realise she was doing it._

_Not a word, not a single bloody word. Acted like it never happened, and if he hadn’t gone out of his way to ask permission before the fact she might almost think he was spending his time on something untoward. If she wasn’t there the whole time he was, if she didn’t see for herself what he was getting up to — talking, non-stop endless bloody talking, as the whelp grew glassy-eyed and sickly-sleepy — she’d likely have suspected he was hiding something. Or trying to, at least, in his usual clumsy manner._

_Not that he could have pulled it off, even if he was. He was smart enough to know that particular one of his shortcomings, at least. No doubt that was the only reason he’d thought to ask permission in the first place._

_It wasn’t really bonding, what they did. Not connecting, either, at least not in any meaningful way. Sandy was still highly suspicious, still wary and fearful, and Locke had a feeling she still secretly believed that Pigsy was more demon than god. Wasn’t too many leagues away from the truth, that, she thought privately, but wisely kept it to herself._

_Still, for all her doubts and discomfort, the kid let him get close, let him talk to her about their sorry half-extinct little breed, let him ramble on and on about stuff she couldn’t possibly understand. Let him do and say all manner of stupid, senseless rubbish, like maybe a part of her understood that he needed to talk a damn sight more than she needed to hear._

_She grew sicker as the days passed, the chill in her chest growing worse and worse in the cold and damp of the cell, so bad that she didn’t even have the strength to complain when Pigsy tried to comfort her. He held her through the fits of coughing and crying, rubbed her back until they passed, soothed and calmed her as best he could, and rather than whining and carrying on about it she just lay there and let it happen. Hard to tell whether she drew comfort from it or not, but it spoke volumes that she didn’t fight. That maybe she couldn’t._

_He told her stories, in her bad moments. Probably made-up nonsense, all of it, but with just enough of a grain of truth that his eyes grew a bit misty as he told them._

_Made Locke get a little misty too, sometimes, not that she’d ever admit it to his face. She’d never really got to see him like this before, free and complete, the way he should have been, the way he might have been in the old world, the gods’ world. With her, he was a god masquerading as a demon, a creature with two souls, the one he was born to and the one he’d crawled his way into. With the child, he was a god, truly and entirely. Locke had never seen him look so pure and so alive._

_Maybe that was why he never talked about it. Didn’t want her to see the parts of him she’d stripped away and slaughtered. Didn’t want to know if she would call it weakness or a thing of beauty._

_Locke wasn’t really sure she knew herself, what she’d call it. All she did know was that it was dangerous, or would be if left unchecked._

_She didn’t mention it either. Just let the silence spread between them, a slow-burning softness that swelled with every sunset, and pretended not to know where it had come from._

*

_Then, at long last, three days after she sent the message, he arrived._

_Not one of the Sentinels, the pale-faced, pale-haired pretty boys. More was the pity, quite frankly; their visits were always a little thrilling, and not just for the size of their purses._

_This one was nothing like them. Just as pretty, in a pouty, brooding sort of way, but completely, unnervingly different. Dark hair slicked back to match the dark lines of his clothing, clean-cut and smooth from every angle. A nice thing to look at, to be sure, but his manners left a lot to be desired._

_He appeared out of nowhere, right in the middle of the day. Rude, to be blunt, but something about the way he held himself — not tall, but strangely intimidating — made her uncharacteristically disinclined to kick up a fuss about it. That wasn’t like her at all, and a small, unexpectedly quiet part of her realised that, but there she was just the same, holding her tongue like the place belonged to him not her._

_“Greetings,” he said, sweeping past her without a drop of sincerity. “I trust the infant god remains safely incarcerated?”_

_Straight to business, then._

_That was... something._

_Locke shook herself, found her fortitude and her indignation. Easier, it seemed, when he wasn’t looking at her, those piercing pale eyes of his throwing her off and making her uneasy._

_“What do you think you’re playing at?” she snapped, scurrying after him. “I don’t know how things work at the Jade Mountain, but around here we ask permission before entering a lady’s home.”_

_He turned again, studying her with twitching lips. “A lady? Yourself?”_

_“You see anyone else?” Still, looking him in the eye again knocked some of the wind out of her sails. Unexpected; she didn’t approve, but once it was gone it was gone and there was nothing she could do to get it back. Frowning, starting to suspect something less than pleasant, she murmured, “You’re not one of the usual messenger boys.”_

_“And you are as observant as you are polite.” He refrained from further comment, though, until they were safely tucked away in her chambers, hidden from curious ears or eyes. “Our shared employer felt it was prudent, given the nature of your... ah, ‘charge’... that we expedite the usual process.”_

_“Good for him,” Locke said dryly. “And for you too, I suppose, assuming you get paid to schlep all this way. But I made it clear with His Lordship a long time ago that I want no part in whatever rubbish he’s cooking up. He can do whatever he wants with the gods I send him, I don’t give a damn, as long as he does it far away from where I run my businesses.”_

_He looked her in the eye, steadily, for just long enough that she felt her knees get a little weak. “Not this time, I’m afraid.”_

_That didn’t bode well. Not at all._

_Locke had no idea what the bigwigs up at the Jade Mountain did with the gods she sent their way, and frankly that was the way she preferred it. Let them play around with their little god-toys all they liked, but keep her out of it. All she wanted was a fat purse and a promise of protection if the stragglers and dissenters ever got traction on their little resistance. That wasn’t too much to ask for, now, was it?_

_Apparently so. Her visitor heaved a sigh, as though he was explaining something terribly simple to someone even simpler and didn’t appreciate the waste of his time._

_“Your prisoner is unique,” he said carefully. “Our employer didn’t want any time wasted in...” He cleared his throat, a little delicately. “...harnessing her talents. The risk of interception in transit, he feels, is too great in this particular case. There are too many others who would stop at nothing to get their hands on an impressionable, corruptible newborn god.”_

_Locke quirked a brow, thrown a little by the way he spoke, the evasion without evasiveness. Never did trust anyone who didn’t just say things out straight. All this dancing and dallying about, it made her nerves itch._

_“So what are you going to do, then?” she demanded, when it became clear he wouldn’t explain further of his own accord. “Cut the little pest open and figure out what makes it tick?”_

_“Not... exactly.” Just a touch too much hesitation, there, she thought, like maybe it wasn’t so far from the truth after all. Locke didn’t let herself wonder why the idea made her uncomfortable. “Our purpose is to extract the ancient language from the gods’ minds and memories. To harness their knowledge for our own purposes. It is... exhausting, to say the least.”_

_“Ooh, boo-hoo.” He wasn’t the only one who could be sarcastic, she thought. “How tragic it must be for you lot, having to actually do a full day’s work once in a while.”_

_“Our hope,” he went on, ignoring her, “is that your infant will be easier to manipulate than her full-grown brethren.”_

_Locke shrugged. What he was talking about went far beyond her comprehension and, more significantly, her coin purse. Let him blather on about the minds and memories of gods all he liked, but until she was getting paid to stand about and listen she had no intention of doing so._

_“Lovely,” she said, waving a hand to silence him. “So take the little brat somewhere safe and do whatever it is you plan to do with it. But keep it out of my bloody house.”_

_He studied her for a long moment, saying nothing. Locke squirmed, discomfited by his scrutiny; she felt like he was piercing her insides, not just her thoughts but something deeper, like he was picking his way through her darkest feelings, the things she’d never even shared with Pigsy. It didn’t make her any more inclined to keep him around, frankly, but at the same time it left her paralysed, like she couldn’t resist him even if she wanted to. It was unpleasant, almost gruesome. Might even have been frightening, if she was the kind to be frightened of anything._

_Luckily, she wasn’t. Or maybe it was just lucky that he chose to tear his gaze away before she got there. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know._

_Either way, after a long, wearying silence, he cut a glance over his shoulder and said, “I have the authority to triple your payment.” He smiled, showing off teeth that seemed just a little too sharp to be normal. “A token of gratitude, if you will, for your continued hospitality.”_

_Locke quirked a brow. Couldn’t be a coincidence, she was sure, how quickly and easily he’d found her one weakness. Still..._

_“Triple, you say?” Too good to be true, had to be. “Just to let you stick around here for your little experimentation?”_

_He cocked his head ever so slightly. “With room for more, should the process prove... messier... than first anticipated.”_

_That got her attention, and not in the good way. “What the bloody hell are you planning to do?”_

_He met her eye. She shivered, suddenly chilled to the bone. “I intend to pay you,” he said simply. “Beyond that... well, you’re the one who doesn’t wish to know the details.”_

_Fair point. She conceded it with a shrug and a hungry, thoughtful look. “You’d be paying up-front, I assume?”_

_He his smile, sharpened, the dangerous look of someone who’d got what they wanted; Locke knew that particular expression quite intimately. “Of course.”_

_“And you’ll leave me out of it?”_

_She didn’t know why that mattered so much, but it did. All the more so after the way he said ‘messy’, like he was talking about something stickier than blood._

_Didn’t want any part of that, she was certain. Bad enough, the filth and dirt already on her hands, but even her greed had limits. Locke was not the squeamish sort, not at all, but she had no intention of getting up close and personal with the insides of a god or any other bloody beast. Had to draw the line somewhere, right? And she drew it there._

_“I will require some... assistance,” he admitted, somewhat cagily. “However, it need not be your own hand.”_

_Locke thought on that for approximately half a second._

_Didn’t exactly take a genius to solve this puzzle, did it?_

_She didn’t have to be happy about it, having some nameless mind-trick demon performing psychic lobotomies on infant gods in her basement, but she had learned a long time ago the subtle art of twisting necessary unpleasantness into advantage._

_She thought of Pigsy, of his newfound softness, of the way he would transform into someone new when he spent time with the brat, the way it would linger afterwards, affection smoothing even his hardest angles when they shared meals or other activities._

_She thought of the strange feeling sparking in her chest when she watched him with the girl. A dangerous and ugly thing, softness, and all the more so in a world like theirs; she had tried so many times to teach him that, to break him of that last lingering old-world habit. Tried and tried, for both of their sakes, but never with any success._

_Wasn’t it her good luck, then, that her new favourite visitor had just handed over the perfect tool for seeing it done?_

_One way or another, she mused, feeling her heart harden to steel, Pigsy would learn the folly in being soft._

_She looked up at her unsettling new friend, and smiled._

_“You know,” she said, “I think I have just the fellow for the job.”_

**


	15. Chapter 15

**

Sandy jolts back to consciousness, freezing cold and unable to stop shivering.

The world around her is a colourless wash, blue light and grey surfaces, steel bars and a stone floor. It’s hard to focus, harder to see; her teeth won’t stop chattering, shards of ice gathering underneath her skin and creeping into her bones, her veins, into every part of her. Cold, cold, _cold_ , and her muscles are freezing and locking up, and her stomach is clenching and twisting, and she can’t breathe, she can’t—

The air is ringing with voices. Screaming, shouting. Pain and fear and horror, every bad thing she’s ever felt in her life, but for the first time in what feels like forever, it’s not coming from her.

She sits up. Tries to, anyway; the room lurches, pitching violently as her body seizes, and then there’s a burst of light and pain behind her eyes, like she’s been struck but from the inside. She falls over, letting her body go limp, and her head strikes frozen stone.

Doesn’t try a second time. She might have little left of her senses — less and less, it seems, every time they do this — but she is smart enough to know not to do that again.

She takes a moment to reorient herself, then squints up at the world through tearing, bleary eyes, watches as it sways sideways, all the different shades of grey and blue all blurring and meshing together until she can’t see anything else. Spectral bodies shimmering and swarming, and for a moment she’s sure she must have done something terrible to her head, broken it even more completely than it already is, because she cannot see or hear or make sense of anything except the cold.

She whines, a high, frightened sort of sound that is so much a revenant of her younger self that she has to stop and touch her own face, her own body, to be sure it’s not a child’s.

It’s not. _She’s_ not.

She’s—

She’s not sure. 

But she thinks she is what she’s supposed to be.

Mostly, anyway. The cold—

She’s been feeling it for some time now, the chills in her chest, her throat, her bones, so much so that she’s sure she must have caught something more than just memory. But this is much worse, so bad she can’t concentrate on anything else at all. She’s shivering and she can’t seem to stop, and her body feels like it is burning up and freezing at the same time.

She lifts her head again. Slower, this time, and very carefully. Searches, squinting, through the murk and the gloom, tries to find something familiar, something comforting, something—

Something _warm_. She needs so badly to be warm.

“Sandy.” Wide eyes, dark with worry, set in a face flushing even darker; for a moment that’s the only thing Sandy can see, the only colour in the lightless, endless grey. “Are you okay?”

Tripitaka. At least she knows that much. At least—

“Cold.”

The word is jagged and incoherent, forced out through still-chattering teeth. Tripitaka frowns and takes her hands, warm pressure from her palms radiating through Sandy’s chilled, bloodless veins.

“Better?”

Her face relaxes when Sandy nods, but only a little. Not as much as she expects; that’s unsettling. Sandy takes a deep breath; her chest feels like it’s been razed.

“I think... yes?”

“Good.” She smiles. Still guarded, but slightly less with every moment. Relieved, Sandy supposes, that she is still enough of herself to recognise even some part of the world around her. “We’ll get you warmed up properly in a little while. But first—”

Stops, cut off by a cry — a _scream_ — from the other side of the cell, the dark corner still shrouded and swollen with grey.

Sandy flinches at the sharpness of it, the ragged violence shot through with pain and fear. Confused and still a little disoriented, she looks down at herself; it’s been so long since she heard that sort of a scream from anyone else, she’s all but forgotten such a thing was possible.

“What’s...?” She tries to sit up fully again, but her head spins. Annoyed at her body’s weakness, she slumps back down. “What’s going on?”

Tripitaka grimaces, averting her eyes. “Locke.”

There’s something deeply unpleasant in her voice as she says it, something very different from the distaste they all share when talking about their demon enemies. Sandy clenches her teeth, braces against the surging dizziness, and sits up again. Properly this time, and stubbornly ignoring the pounding in her skull.

She squints, wills her vision to stop blurring, and finds the silhouette of the Shaman crouched in a corner on the other side of the cell.

“What happened?”

He ignores her. Hunched over Locke, he doesn’t spare a glance for her or anyone else. His body language says a great deal, though; even in her present diminished state, Sandy can tell that it’s bad.

Locke is sprawled on her back, shaking and twitching, like she’s having a nightmare or a seizure, or perhaps like she’s in great pain. Could be all of them, if her screams are anything to go by. Hard to see anything with any kind of certainty — Sandy’s vision won’t stay focused, no matter how hard she squints — but they’ve spent enough time together that she recognises her shape, the colours of her clothes, the sound of her voice, even raised and strangled as it is, made brittle by her suffering.

Tripitaka, following her gaze with a sigh, says to the Shaman, “How is she?”

The Shaman looks up, acknowledging Tripitaka — if only briefly — but still not Sandy. His movements are strangely sharp, and his eye seems to twitch in rhythm with his hands. He is upset and angry, far more than Sandy has ever seen him, and when he speaks his voice is like stone.

“Did I not warn you?” So hard, so rough, she feels the old instincts to run and hide rushing up in her chest; she flinches, cowering behind Tripitaka. “I made the point quite clearly that I am not accustomed to travelling through the minds of demons.”

“I know.” Tripitaka swallows. She doesn’t look much braver than Sandy feels. “But you never mentioned anything like—”

“Silence!” His eyes flash a terrible warning, and he turns back to Locke. “This is on your conscience, human. You and your impatient, broken little friend.”

Shivering again, Sandy presses her face to Tripitaka’s shoulder. “Sorry.”

The Shaman, busy with his own charge, continues to ignore her. “If one of my kind dies from this...” he rants. “If my work is responsible for the death of a demon...” His breath judders in his chest, the most dreadful sound Sandy has ever heard. “If anything happens to her, justice will be swift and terrible.”

Sandy’s throat tightens. She coughs again, closer to a sob now, and feels Tripitaka’s body go tense in front of her. Protecting, shielding, perhaps cringing a little too; she wants to thank her, but—

“Watch your mouth!”

 _Monkey_.

He’s still posted outside the cell, but he has no intention of letting his presence go forgotten. He take a long, furious step forward, nostrils flaring with anger and threat.

Tripitaka, sensing danger on the horizon, stands up. “Monkey—”

“Quiet, monk.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the Shaman. “You’re the one messing around inside people’s heads. You don’t get to point your fingers at them when you screw it up again.”

“ _Monkey_.” A threat now, razor-edged on Tripitaka’s tongue. “Not now.”

He snarls, shaking the bars of the cell. Sandy flinches again, a low whimper breaking out of her sore throat. She feels too small, like she’s pressing a little too closely against her young self, and all the anger in the air makes her feel raw and frightened.

“I’m sorry,” she rasps, shrinking her body down and hugging her knees. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry, I...”

“You didn’t do anything,” Tripitaka tells her, then hardens. “Monkey. If you can’t say anything helpful, maybe go and take a walk.”

“No.” The Shaman’s voice is low and urgent; he sounds as strung out as Sandy feels. “Let him assist me in here. _You_ should go for a walk, you and your broken god.”

“But—”

“Go. Your presence, both of you, is a distraction, one I cannot afford if I am to save her life.” He looks up, very briefly, and the fire behind his eyes makes the room feel hot. “And you had best pray that I do.”

The fire dies swiftly, though, sputtering out to ashes, as cold and grey as the rest of the room, when he turns back to Locke. She’s very still now, terrifyingly so, and Sandy’s heart gives a strange sort of stutter to look at her, caught between the pain she suffered at her hands all those years ago and the gentler conversations they shared during the journey here. She doesn’t know what to feel, and for a moment her thundering heart tries to feel everything all at once.

She shudders, struggling to get herself under control; there is something wild and untethered inside of her, and she can’t seem to hold down her feelings as well as she should.

Looking up, she finds Tripitaka’s eyes. Holds them, drowns in them, lets them tether and ground her, until she doesn’t feel so much of everything.

“Please,” she whispers. “If it helps...”

Tripitaka studies her for a moment, studies the Shaman for another, then nods almost imperceptibly and turns back to Monkey.

“Help him,” she says, much softer now. “Please, Monkey. Just this once, just...”

Stops, blinking her surprise to find him already stomping into the cell, a serious, determined look on his face.

“Go,” he says, echoing the Shaman. “I’ll keep the demon out of trouble.” His eyes grow dark and cloudy, but the determination does not waver. “Both of them.”

Tripitaka reels for a moment, visibly thrown, but seems to know better than to mention it.

“Thank you,” she whispers instead, as earnest and sincere as Sandy’s ever heard her.

Sandy tries to mumble her thanks as well, but the words don’t want to take shape. She feels awful, aching and shivering all over, the tremors of her childhood illness rocking through her a dozen decades too late. She wants to lie down and sleep, wants to crawl into a quiet corner and hide forever, wants to be somewhere safe and warm and—

Tripitaka takes her hand. The shivering stalls a little, breaking in rhythm with her heartbeat.

“Come on,” she says, and her voice is everything Sandy needs. “Let’s get you warmed up.”

*

Outside the cell, out of earshot, Sandy whispers, “What happened?”

Tripitaka huffs out a breath, too ragged to be a sigh but too heavy to be anything else. “I don’t know,” she says, low and worried. “But I’ve never seen the Shaman so shaken up.”

“Angry,” Sandy says. She’s shivering again, not just from the cold. “Not ‘shaken up’. He was angry.”

“I think it’s the same thing.” Tripitaka looks and sounds rather shaken up herself, and that lends itself to rather more empathy than the Shaman’s wild, fire-flooded eyes. “Panic can make you lash out.”

Sandy wraps her arms around herself, presses her back against the wall. She feels frightened and lost, more than she should feel when she is herself, much more than she usually does when Tripitaka is touching her.

“Never seen Locke like that either,” she hears herself murmur. “So much screaming. And then she was so... so...”

“So _still_.” Tripitaka is chewing her lip, looking conflicted. “It’s hard to have sympathy for her. The way she’s lived her life, the things we just saw... she’s never shown any kind of remorse. Not a moment of guilt or shame for the pain she’s caused. Even knowing that we’d see it, even knowing you’d have to relive what she did to you... nothing. And I know she’s in pain, but how are we supposed to feel sorry for her when we just saw... _that_?”

Sandy swallows. Tries to piece together her own feelings, but it’s difficult and her head feels like it’s full of cloth and clouds.

She thinks of late-night darkness and the moon sweeping across their campsites, of Locke’s hands tugging gently at her hair, of her voice in her ear, thick with derision, stumbling over the word ‘feelings’, so desperate to keep the caring hidden safely out of sight. Thinks of the way she would gaze at Pigsy when she thought no-one was looking, the heavy sorrow that touched her face. Thinks of her wilful honesty, her frankness, the way she’s all but given up hope of ever becoming better.

“I think...” she starts—

Stops, flooded by a very different set of memories.

A different kind of darkness, the same moon but colder, smaller, less, a tiny shaft of white piercing her eyes through the gaps between the bars. A cold stone floor, seizures in her chest and daggers in her throat, her voice raw and ragged, coughing, crying, feeling sick and scared, and a razor-edged voice hissing _“shut up”_.

She doesn’t even really realise she’s started whimpering until Tripitaka’s face fills her vision, until she blinks and notices she’s on her knees with Tripitaka’s hands at her face, until she catches the dark worry in her eyes, the scent and warmth of her robes, her hands, her touch...

“Sandy?” Fear in her voice, high but controlled. “Sandy, can you hear me?”

Sandy breathes — tries to breathe; it’s more difficult than it should be when her chest is razed by a child’s sickness — and tries to focus, as she has learned to do, on her anchor.

“Tripitaka.” She stumbles over the name, each syllable more halting than the last, but she gets it out in the end, for both of them. “Sorry. Hard to think. I don’t...”

“You don’t look well.”

“Yes.” She fights down a cough, fights down the shivers, the shudders, the fear. “It’s all mixed up. More than usual, even. I think... I think I’m still a little bit inside of me.”

Inside of _her_ , she means. The younger her, the one with chills in her chest and panic in her throat, the lonely, frightened god-child who doesn’t know anything but pain and fear.

Tripitaka understands, of course, without needing to hear any more. She moves her thumb a little, soothing along the curve of Sandy’s jaw, and slows her breathing like she wants her to try and catch it. Tethering her, anchoring her, just like she always does. Sandy hates herself for needing it so often, for falling so far inside herself, for slipping so easily through the cracks in her mind.

“I think something went wrong,” Tripitaka says. Soft, steady, even as her eyes grow hard. “Maybe he... maybe it was more different than he thought, navigating the mind of a demon?”

Sandy closes her eyes for a moment, tries to process this. “Possibly.”

“It would explain why he was so defensive. If he blames himself—”

“No,” Sandy says, sharper, and shivers right out of Tripitaka’s grasp. “He was _angry_ , Tripitaka. Not defensive, not upset. _Angry_. And he blamed us for it. Not himself.”

When she opens her eyes again, Tripitaka is smiling. Soft and fond, like she thinks Sandy is something precious, something adorable. Sandy wants to feel affronted, but she’s not sure she understands where the sentiment came from.

“People do that,” Tripitaka explains, still smiling. “When they don’t want to admit they might have made a mistake. When it’s too hard to accept their own part in something bad, they diffuse responsibility onto others. It’s a...” She trails off for a beat, then, to Sandy’s surprise, she chuckles; it’s small and very brief, but there. “I forget sometimes, just how little social interaction you’ve had in your life. How little experience you have with basic emotions, with other people, with...”

And just like that, the moment of mirth is gone. Swallowed and suffocated by the darkness of realisation, sorrow and grief flooding her face and washing away the smile and the humour as she grasps what that really means. Years and years of solitude, of isolation, no company but madness and the maybe-imaginary voices of hungry water-dwelling creatures.

Sandy wills herself not to think about that. Reminds herself that it doesn’t matter, that it’s not important, that the only thing that does matter is _this_. Tripitaka, her dark eyes and her open face, Tripitaka who never cared that the god who worshipped her was strange and wrong.

Her thoughts ripple, intangible and fluid. She bites down hard on her tongue, focuses on the pain, the twisting of her muscles as she grimaces, the tight frown on Tripitaka’s face. It doesn’t tether her completely, but it’s good enough to keep her afloat.

For now.

“I hope he fixes Locke soon,” she mumbles, mostly to herself. “I think I might need him to patch me up a little as well.”

Tripitaka doesn’t argue. That’s very worrying; she’s usually quick to insist that Sandy is fine, that she’s not broken at all.

“Where do you want to go?” she asks, and it is typically clumsy, the way she changes the subject and pretends it’s a perfectly normal segue, the way she thinks Sandy won’t notice the uneasiness shadowing her face when she turns away, the worry masquerading as something simpler. “Up to the top of the palace? Maybe the tavern? We could walk around town for a while, get some air?”

She’s floundering, Sandy realises, desperate for a change of scenery. Like she truly believes sunlight or the smell of stale liquor will banish the ghosts from Sandy’s head.

Doesn’t matter; it’s too much work, trying to think of an answer. Sandy’s mind reels, creaking inside of her, as she tries and fails to picture the suggested destinations. She feels useless, futile, and suddenly the thought of making a decision is the most terrifying thing in all the world.

“Don’t know.” Her voice cracks; she sounds just as frightened as she feels. “Can’t you decide for me?”

Tripitaka looks like she’s been struck a blow, like Sandy just asked her to select a random stranger and throw them to the slaughter, like the fate of the world hinges on this decision, like the village will crumble and burn to the ground if she happens to choose badly.

“I don’t...” She takes a breath; for a moment she looks scared too. “Sandy, there are so many places here that hold horrible memories for you. I don’t want to suggest something that might cause you more pain.”

“No. That would be bad.” She wets her lips. “I’m barely holding onto myself as it is.”

True enough. But they can’t loiter outside the prison for the rest of their lives, and in any case she’s too cold to endure much more of the frost-covered stone and steel. She wants to be somewhere warm, wants to feel sheltered and protected, shrouded and taken care of, wants Tripitaka’s arms around her and Tripitaka’s robes against her bare skin, the scratchy fabric chasing the chill away by some miracle of monkish magic.

Tripitaka watches her for a moment or two, taking in her unfocused eyes, her clammy skin, the way she’s still shivering. Then, slowly and thoughtfully, she says, “Maybe back to the tavern, then?”

“Tavern?” Sandy echoes, feeling the word like a throbbing pressure at the back of her mind.

“Yeah.” She sounds uncertain. “No connections to Locke. It’s warm, it’s familiar. And if we ask nicely, maybe we can get Monica to run you a hot bath.”

Sandy runs the thought over in her head a few times, tasting it.

Something tugs at the edges of her mind. A memory, an echo—

Hot steam rising. Her body, scrawny and shivering and so cold—

Her throat razed raw. Her mind in pieces, thoughts fractured—

Voices above her. Large hands on her naked shoulders, and then—

And then—

“Sandy?”

_Yes._

She breathes slowly, carefully, each inhalation a reminder of who and where she is, each exhalation a whisper of her name, her identity. In and out, in and out, so steady that Tripitaka must surely be proud of her. 

“Nothing,” she manages, when she can speak. “Just a... moment.”

Tripitaka touches her forehead with the back of her hand, then peers into her eyes, as though testing for fever-induced delirium or a concussion or some other tangible issue. Satisfied that there is none, she leans back, but the tight frown never quite fades from her face.

“That hasn’t happened in a while,” she says in a low voice. “You losing yourself like that.”

“No.” Sandy tries to swallow, but it makes her throat hurt too much. “I don’t... feel right.”

True, more true than she can express in such simple words.

Her head feels shaky, volatile and upset in the way her belly gets after she’s eaten something she shouldn’t have, or maybe the way her legs get when they try to find their footing on unstable ground, like one wrong move would send her toppling into a world of misery. She can feel the rips and tears inside of her pulling, tugging at their seams, the patched-up places where her memory is trying to rebuild itself, like something has snuck inside and started hacking.

Not just her head, though. Her chest hurts, her throat hurts, her lungs are filled with water that threatens to spill out of her mouth every time she speaks or coughs or tries to move. She feels like a child with a chill, like the child she was, like the chill she had, and she knows it’s wrong, knows it’s _past_ , but no matter how hard she tries she can’t seem to make her body understand.

Her memory isn’t working properly either, not the way it did after she visited Monica’s. She doesn’t recall with any clarity the things she saw in Locke’s mind, doesn’t remember being a captive or a prisoner, doesn’t remember the things she did or said, only things she _felt_. Because she feels them again now, as close to the surface as her own heartbeat: the biting, piercing cold, the roughness of damp stone under her skin, the chills in her chest, the pain and the terror and the loneliness. All of it, tangible and true and _now_.

Watching her closely, Tripitaka’s frown deepens.

“I’m starting to think this was a bad idea,” she says slowly. “Using Locke’s memories instead of Pigsy’s. I know you didn’t want to use his, but you... I think something went wrong. Neither of you came out right.”

Sandy understands that, of course. Sort of knew it before they even started; the Shaman does not balk lightly from his duties, but he was half a breath away from refusing outright if they didn’t take his qualms seriously. Sandy’s instincts had warned her to heed him, but she was too frightened of what she might find in Pigsy’s mind, of experiencing her pain through his eyes, and she hadn’t wanted to listen to anything else.

A fitting punishment for her cowardice, she supposes, whining as her muscles start to shiver again.

“Didn’t want to hurt her,” she mumbles, wrapping her arms around herself. “Even after everything she’s done. Didn’t want to do her any harm. I just... I didn’t want... I couldn’t...”

“I know.” Tripitaka gently pulls her arms away, holds her hands to keep them still. “You did want to go inside Pigsy’s memories. I get it. And I don’t blame you. But I think...”

She falters, uncomfortable and visibly hesitant. Sandy wills herself not to flinch, not to pull away, not to struggle and resist what she knows is coming, the inevitability and the truth.

“Yes.” The word is rough, ragged, or maybe that’s just the razors in her throat. “I know. Bad idea, stupid idea. I know it was foolish. I know it caused harm. I know this, Tripitaka.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

She moves away, then, walking in silence, guiding them away from the palace, the prison, the place of so much cold and so much fear.

Sandy trails along dutifully behind her, curious and confused and upset. Trying, and mostly failing, to keep from getting lost inside her thoughts. Not so easy in practice; every step sends little tremors through her body, make it difficult to focus. She feels like she did during the journey here, the long days and nights before they got here and started piecing her memory together, when she would lose herself and her equilibrium if she thought too much, when she had to depend on Monkey’s raw physicality to help quiet her roaring mind.

She doesn’t want to go through that again. So she holds on as tightly as she can to the shape of Tripitaka’s shoulders in front of her, to the harmony of her footsteps, her breathing.

Finally, when they’ve walked a little distance, when Sandy’s mostly locked into the simplicity of motion, she takes a deep breath, steadies herself, and says, “What _were_ you going to say?”

Just asking the question fills her with dread. Even in her current state, disoriented and confused, she knows enough to realise she won’t like what she’s about to hear.

Tripitaka sighs, and the heaviness of her breath all but confirms it.

“I think Pigsy’s the only option.”

Sandy tenses; her whole body locks up for a moment. “I... _no_.”

“Sandy.” She sighs again; clearly the reaction was not unexpected. “The Shaman won’t want to go back into Locke’s mind after this. And even if he did, she may not be in any condition for it anyway. She was in a bad way, a really bad way, and...”

“I know. Don’t want to make it worse. Don’t want to...”

She can’t finish.

Tripitaka touches her arm. “Yeah. She deserves a lot, but not that. And I think he’s the only one left. The only one that we know for sure was there. The only one who...” 

“I know.” Getting the word out is horribly painful, and not only because her throat hurts; there is something violently unpleasant bubbling in her chest, anger and defiance and an overwhelming helplessness. “You don’t need to speak to me like that. Don’t need to explain everything like I’m still a child who doesn’t understand the simplest things.” It bursts out of her, the awful feeling, a flood she can neither stop nor understand. “I know what needs to be done! I don’t need you to tell me!”

“Sandy.” Tripitaka looks like she’s been struck. “I didn’t think I was... I mean, I didn’t mean to—”

“I understand what’s needed.” Her voice is a savage creature, independent of the rest of her, and she could not stop it even if she had the strength to try. “I may not like it, but I do understand. I’m not so pathetic that I don’t see what is in front of me. I’m not so _useless_ , so _worthless_ , so—”

“Okay.” She’s upset now, wounded and confused. “Okay, Sandy, I’m sorry.”

The word wraps itself around her, a shroud or a cloak pulled a little too tight. It cuts off her breath, cuts off the jagged, violent thing inside of her, leaves her with nothing but herself, weak and small and as helpless as she ever was.

“I...” She stops, drops her head into her hands, presses her fingers into her temples until she’s able to hold her thoughts and feelings together again. “I don’t know where that came from. I’m sorry, Tripitaka, I...”

“It’s okay.” Tripitaka strokes her arm. “You’re not yourself. You’re disoriented, you’re—”

“Many things.”

Only one springs to mind, though, and it’s the one Tripitaka doesn’t like to hear. _Broken_. She has never felt it so completely as she does now, her words and thoughts not her own, her body shivering with someone else’s sickness, every part of her resisting and rebelling against things that make no sense at all. Broken, wholly and completely.

She spares them both the pain of saying it, though. This is difficult enough without another argument.

Tripitaka sighs. Sees the word she doesn’t say behind the littler ones she did, but she’s good at pretending she didn’t. She summons a smile, shaky but sincere, and breathes slowly and carefully, the way she does when she’s trying to balance her body on a delicate wire, when she’s trying to take some of Sandy’s burdens into herself.

“I wasn’t...” She stops, holding her breath for a moment; Sandy feels her own pulse stall as well. “I didn’t mean to tell you what to do or treat you like you’re useless or...” Her voice cracks. “Or anything like that. I know you’re strong, I know you’re smart. And I know you don’t need me to tell you anything.”

Sandy’s face burns. “Yes,” she says. “I don’t know why it felt so... why I took it so personally. I don’t feel like myself.”

“I know.” She finds her hand and squeezes. “This isn’t the way it usually goes. That’s why I’m worried. That’s why I think...”

“Yes.” She swallows convulsively; her whole body shrieks a protest of pain. “I know.”

Tripitaka nods, and they start moving again. Slow, steady, and Sandy tries to find solace in the rhythm of motion, the familiarity of it, but it’s as difficult as if she’d never learned how to put one foot in front of the other. Even with Tripitaka’s hand on her arm, her monk’s robes rustling against the tattered leather of her clothes, the bare skin underneath, even with Tripitaka filling all of her senses, still it is such a terrible effort.

Finally, when they’ve settled back into an illusion of rhythm, Tripitaka says, “I think you should talk to him.”

Sandy jolts. Stumbles, almost falls. Maybe would, if Tripitaka wasn’t still gripping her arm and holding her upright.

“Talk to him.” Echoing the words doesn’t make them any easier to swallow. “To Pigsy?”

“Yeah.” Soft but hopeful. “Before we try again with his memories. Before we expose ourselves to more of this.” She gestures, taking in Sandy’s current condition, and perhaps the memory of Locke’s as well, screaming and then as still as death. “We know powerful emotions makes it harder. And you’re not... um...”

Sandy musters a hoarse chuckle. “You can say it. I’m not particularly good at controlling mine. Even when I’m well, yes?” She sighs. “They tend to control me instead, I think. Maybe if I didn’t let them, we wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“I think that’s stretching it,” Tripitaka says, with rather more kindness than Sandy deserves. “But you... well, you feel things so strongly. Sometimes so much the rest of us can’t keep up with you.”

Hard to deny that, especially not right now. Sandy shrugs her agreement. “Lived alone my whole life. No-one to be afraid if I got angry. No-one to think I was weak if I cried. Feelings like water, they flow and they course and sometimes they spill over. Never been any other way.” It’s only now that she realises it might be something to be ashamed of. “You saw the way _she_ was, in their memories. Always crying. Always feeling something, sometimes feeling everything. And she... she did become me. We have the same insides.”

“The same heart,” Tripitaka says, achingly gentle. “She had a lot of reasons to feel as much as she did, and so do you. I didn’t mean to imply it’s a bad thing, being that way. Just that it is.”

“It is,” Sandy agrees sadly. “And she was. And I am.”

She closes her eyes, swallowing in rhythm with Tripitaka’s fingertips as she strokes across the back of her knuckles. Focuses as much as she can on the physicality of it, Tripitaka’s softness and her rough edges, the chills and callouses, a lifetime of jagged edges etched onto the skin. She wonders what it might have been like, being raised by the Scholar like Tripitaka was, wonders what sort of a life it must be, to live and breathe and thrive so well that her hands could grow so soft.

After a tender, too-fleeting moment, Tripitaka says, “He was kind.”

Sandy blinks back to herself, waits for her vision to focus. “The Scholar?”

Tripitaka doesn’t quite flinch, but it’s a very close thing. “Pigsy.”

“Oh.”

“In Locke’s memory, I mean,” she says, tentative, like she’s afraid the words will upset her again. “I don’t know if yours are... if you remember it properly yet. But when she was watching him, the time he spent with you... Sandy, he was so gentle, so careful. He took care of you, as well as he could in a hellish situation, and he was so _kind_.”

Sandy tries to think, tries to recall. Presses down a bit inside her head, tests the frayed edges of her memory. 

It doesn’t work the way it did with Monica, two sets of memories blending and meshing together until they became one, until Monica’s became her own, until she became herself again. Different this time, unpleasant, like she’s feeling things without knowing why or how, emotion without comprehension, without context. She can feel the damp, cold air, the frozen stone against her skin, the half-dried tears on her face, can feel the chill in her chest, the wracking pains, coughing and heaving and shivering, the fear, the horror, the—

All of it.

Feels everything.

But remembers?

Not tangibly. Not truly. The memories that should be solid remains ghostly and indistinct, like the afterimage of the sun or a shadow she can no longer see.

She shakes her head. Tripitaka never actually asked, but still Sandy feels it’s a detail worth sharing. Flatters herself that she matters enough, that the worried warmth in Tripitaka’s eyes means she wants to know even if she didn’t look her in the eye and ask the question.

“I don’t...” She shivers. “I don’t know. It’s hard, it’s confusing, I’m not...”

“Yeah.” Tripitaka squeezes her hand a little, and doesn’t let go even after Sandy is calm enough to stop babbling. “And it doesn’t help that the Shaman’s busy dealing with Locke. Usually when things go wrong inside you...”

She stops with a sigh. No sense in dwelling on it, Sandy supposes.

“It’s fine,” she says, trying not to pout. “Didn’t really want to remember it anyway.”

Tripitaka’s lips twitch, like she’s trying to hide a smile. “You’re so...”

Stops, clearing her throat and looking inexplicably embarrassed. Takes her hands back too, like she’s ashamed of the way they’re touching, the calming intimacy of it, the softness-on-coarseness.

Sandy gazes down at her knuckles, then turns her hands over, pulls back her sleeves and studies her palms. They’re no less calloused, her palms even though they haven’t suffered as much. No quick blows, no sharp jabs; even her elbows should have more callouses than her palms, and yet they don’t. Faint scar lines, little cracks and fractures where her powers flow; she never needed to touch someone to make them hurt, or to make herself hurt too.

“I know you’re right,” she says, not looking up. She doesn’t want Tripitaka to see the discomfort struggling to colour her face. “I know I need to talk to him. Need to make it easier. If we’re going to... if I need to... if he’s the only...” It makes her shudder just to think about it, and so she gives up trying to put the nightmare into words. “I don’t want to lose myself again. Hurts worse than betrayal, losing myself. Worse than anything in the world. Confusion, chaos, the loss of control... it is so, so frightening.”

She trembles. Whimpers. Coughs, and feels water surging in her lungs.

Tripitaka trembles too. “I can’t even imagine. I’m not sure I’d want to.”

“You don’t.” She wills the tremors to stop, for both their sakes. “But I will. Talk to him. If you think it will stop that from happening. If you think suffering now will spare me more pain later. And if you will... if you...” Her voice cracks, then she coughs again, and she’s not sure which of the two is more unpleasant. “If you’ll stay with me.”

“Of course.” Tripitaka’s voice breaks a little too; it’s a small comfort, but it cuts unspeakably deep. “Sandy, you know I’ll be wherever you need me to be. By your side or...” She winces. “Anywhere.”

“I do know that, yes.” She tries to smile, and fails miserably. “But it’s hard sometimes to believe it. I’m not accustomed to... to any of this.”

And she looks down at her hands again, and then at Tripitaka’s, at the little distances spreading out between them. Lets her see, without having to hear it said, that she’s not just talking about her mind or her memories, the screaming and sobbing of her younger self inside her head, about the places where she’s broken and lost, the realisation that it might have been a friend who made it happen.

That, yes, all of it. But some other things as well. Some things she doesn’t understand well enough to put into words. Some things that maybe don’t have any words to begin with.

Tripitaka studies her. She reaches out for a fraction of a second, cleaving the air between them, then seems to change her mind and draws back. Eyes suddenly bright, she turns away.

“Sandy...”

It—

It sounds like it means a lot of things, a lot of very different things.

But Sandy is in no condition to try and pick them all apart, to pick anything apart but especially that. Her name. Her identity, and what it means.

There are still days, even now, when she feels uncomfortable inside her name, days when just the taste of it on her tongue is an unfamiliar, unsettling thing. Before this, before she swallowed down Monica’s memories of a ragged urchin covered in sea-salt and sand, she’d always assumed she’d taken the name for herself. Claimed it, perhaps, in a burst of nostalgia over her absent family and the sea she thought she’d never see again. 

But even that, it seemed, was not truly her own. Like everything else she’d once believed was hers, the name was just another cast-off, another broken-off piece of a moment long forgotten and cast aside. She doesn’t know how to feel about that. Doesn’t know what to make of the fluttering inside of her when she hears the name — hers, still, for all that — fall from Tripitaka’s lips.

Her mind reels. Her heart too.

And so, without really knowing what she feels, what to say, she simply blurts out, as she always does, the first wayward thought that enters her mind:

“I feel too much.”

And she means _about this_ and she means _about you_ , and she turns away with all of herself, her whole body, because she doesn’t want to know whether or not Tripitaka can hear any of the things she’s not actually said.

And for a long, long time there is nothing at all.

No motion, no sound, nothing.

Just the air shifting in rhythm with their breath, just the rustle of monk’s robes in the breeze, just the shimmering, intangible echo of a hundred other moments just like this, stuck in the limbo of emptiness.

And then, at last, Tripitaka reaches for her hand again. Takes it, holds it, keeps it close, like nothing happened between them at all, like she never let it go. And her palm settles across Sandy’s, almost too gentle to bear, and then she tangles their fingers together like she’s trying to keep her in place, like she’s afraid she’ll try to run away if she doesn’t hold on tight enough.

“Tavern?” she says, in a voice heavy with many other things.

Sandy’s heart kicks against her ribs, but she doesn’t try to run away. She lets the softness of Tripitaka’s skin soothe over the callouses on her palms, lets the contact chase away the discomfort, the terror, the wordless dread.

Tripitaka squeezes her hand again, encouraging, and this time Sandy squeezes back.

“Tavern,” she says, proud of the way her voice only shakes a little.

Going by the warmth in Tripitaka’s eyes, Sandy thinks maybe she’s proud of her too.

*

At the tavern, they find what they’re looking for, the good and the bad.

A hot bath, or the promise of one. And a drained, sorry-looking Pigsy.

He’s sitting in the main tavern, hunched in a dark, quiet corner and staring down at an untouched cup of tea. Probably Monica’s doing, the beverage; from the look on his face, he’s craving something quite a lot stronger.

Sandy can’t really blame him for that. Even knowing as she does what happened the last time she drank too much of something stronger, she can’t say the idea of drowning in a cup is unappealing at this point. She’d gladly take the queasiness of a spinning room over the other kind of vertigo, the one that begins in her head rather than her belly.

She watches him brood for a moment or two longer than she probably should. The phantom chill spreads inside her, cracking through her bones and freezing her blood, a creeping frost that makes her teeth start to chatter again.

Tripitaka glances up at her, alarmed. “Sandy?”

She clenches her jaw, willing it to stop. “Cold.”

Standing stiffly behind the bar, Monica greets them with a raised eyebrow. “Is there a snowstorm out there or something?” she asks. “You look like you’ve just wandered in from the frozen north.”

Still clenching her teeth together, Sandy touches the side of her head and says, “Not out there, just in here.”

“Right. Because that makes perfect sense.” She turns her eye to Tripitaka, as though expecting her to be the voice of reason. “Did that demon of yours do another number on her?”

Tripitaka shuffles her feet, shifting uncomfortably. “We’re not entirely sure yet.”

“Right.”

Acutely and painfully aware of Pigsy’s eyes on them, Sandy clears her throat. It twists in her throat, turning almost instantly into a cough, into wracking pains in her chest, into a breathlessness she can’t fight, wheezing as the air catches on the ice shards cutting her throat. It’s the opposite of what she wanted — more attention instead of less — and when Tripitaka presses a hand to her back, gentle motion to soothe the spasms, she feels the contact too keenly, too sensitive in every part of her.

When it passes, the coughing fit, Tripitaka looks up to Monica with a pleading expression. “Things didn’t go as well with Locke as they did with you,” she explains, hopefully low enough to keep Pigsy from overhearing.

Monica doesn’t look particularly surprised, nor particularly sympathetic. “That’s what happens,” she says hotly, “when you let two demons get close to each other.”

Tripitaka opens her mouth, then sighs and shuts it again, shaking her head. Not much she can say against that, really; it’s true enough, if not really for the reasons Monica thinks. It’s not about trust, not about good gods standing against bad demons; it’s just someone who couldn’t do what he tried to do, who was inexperienced in a particular task, and failed.

Mostly failed.

Failed enough, at least, that Sandy is breathless from the ice blades in her chest, that she is cowering and cringing, halfway to tears, gripped by the paralysing terror of a trapped child.

She coughs again. Not so violent this time, but it still hurts more than it should.

Monica frowns, a little perplexed but not annoyed in her usual way. She’s hard to read sometimes, when she’s not set to the default irritation, but Sandy is fairly sure she sees pity flickering in her eye. Recognises it, in some small part of herself, from all those years ago. Remembers, indistinct and slightly feverish, being rather more deserving of it then than she is now.

“Never expected history to repeat itself like this,” Monica murmurs after a quiet moment. She’s speaking very softly, as though to herself, and there’s a heavy sort of darkness that doesn’t really mesh with what Sandy has seen inside her memories. Then, with a sigh, she steps out from behind the bar. “Suppose I’d best get some hot water going, eh?”

Tripitaka grins. Squeezes Sandy’s hand, quick but firm, and says, “See? Hot bath. That’ll warm you up.”

Sandy nods, still shivering. She really does feel like she’s just stepped in from midwinter, like the air around her is growing colder by the moment. She tugs her hand gently free of Tripitaka’s, holds it up and examines it under the dim tavern lights. It’s almost translucent, white with the cold, but it starts to glow as she feels her powers surge.

It makes her feel stronger, the familiar sensation, and in control.

“I can help,” she says to Monica, perhaps a little too eagerly. “Water is my speciality.”

It’s not just an attempt to make herself useful, to ease some of the kindness for a woman who’s already given her far too much. It’s a reminder to herself, as well, of what she is now, the woman — the _god_ — that she has become, a lifetime after she was small and sickly. There is power within her, formidable and beautiful, even when she can’t quite keep her body still, and the water she feels in her lungs is powerful too; it belongs to her, and she has spent decades learning how to use it properly.

She holds her hand out, shimmering with power, with water, with something entirely hers. Smiles at Monica, feeling strong and good and whole, and—

Stops with a whine, a petulant child all over again, as Monica leans over the bar and slaps her wrist.

“Not in my tavern, you don’t,” she snaps. “No weapons, no powers. Thought I raised you better than—”

Trails off, eye going wide, realising what she just said.

Sandy stares at her, feeling an old, unfamiliar ache rise up in her chest. It’s the first pain in a while that has nothing to do with the cold, but it’s no less unpleasant.

“You...” She closes her eyes, swallows emotion as sour-tasting as sickness. “You didn’t raise me.”

“I...” Monica swallows too, then sighs. “Well, you have me there. Wishful thinking, I suppose.” Takes a moment to compose herself — just a moment, no more, as if Sandy is worth little more than a passing thought — and then moves on. “Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll go get that bath drawn up. The old-fashioned way, thank you very much.”

And off she strides, taking the stairs two at a time, without waiting for a response.

Watching this exchange from his corner, Pigsy clears his throat.

“Probably for the best,” he murmurs, tentative and a little subdued, like he’s feeling out the idea of speaking, testing the waters to see if they will drown him. Sandy has to bite down hard on the urge to do exactly that; it’s harder than it should be, with her powers still rippling so close to the surface. “I mean, she’s not exactly the most maternal person in the world, is she?”

Sandy looks at him, a growl rumbling in her chest, low and hard, feral enough to drown the lingering pains.

“She might have been,” she grits out, though a part of her knows he’s likely right. “I’ll never know now, because _you_ stole me away in the dead of night before either of us got a chance.”

Tripitaka pats her arm. “Sandy...”

“Yes.” She doesn’t want to lose that sharp edge, not when it feels like the only thing keeping her afloat, but Tripitaka’s soft voice always puts a pin in her temper. “Yes, I know. ‘Talk to him’.”

Pigsy quirks a brow, but doesn’t ask. “It was a different world back then,” he says, almost to himself.

It is almost a comfort that he would sooner make excuses for a decades-old deed than stand up and apologise for it; Sandy feels justified when the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, when she feels her teeth sharpen and grow hungry in her mouth.

“You...” The word rasps, grazing her throat with the effort of getting it out. “Is that really all you have to say for yourself?”

He looks conflicted, and a bit stunned. Like he was sort of hoping it could be, like he really believed he could get away with sweeping this under the carpet along with his countless other sins. Sandy doesn’t know whether to be angry or hurt, but she is certainly not surprised.

Moving cautiously, like someone sensing that the ground is loose underneath her feet, Tripitaka steps between them. Possibly to stop Sandy from doing something she’ll regret, possibly just to try and defuse the tension; either way it’s only partially successful. She’s trying to be a sort of buffer, making herself a go-between, and though she appreciates the effort Sandy definitely does not appreciate the way it drags her out of her orbit. She feels like the world is twisting around her now, like she’s alone again, untethered, unanchored, untouched.

“You were kind,” Tripitaka says to Pigsy. Definitely just trying to defuse tension, then. Good. Sandy lets her teeth show again, and flexes her fingers. “In Locke’s memory. You did what you did, what you had to do, but you took care of her. Comforted her when she was sick. Told her stories. Made her as comfortable as you could. Like a—”

“Nah.” He looks more than a little uneasy now, at least to Sandy’s blurry, unreliable eye. She’s still trying not to drown in her half-remembered emotions, half-blind with the force of it, and she can make out the strain on his face, the lines that say perhaps he’s doing the same thing. “You do what you have to. But you also... you do what you _can_. Even if it’s not enough. Even if...”

And he looks at Sandy like he sees all the things she’s feeling, like maybe he’s always seen them, even before she had any idea they were there. Like maybe that’s all he’s ever been able to see in her, over all the years she thought he knew and respected her as an enemy and all the months she thought they were friends. So much time, on both sides of the line, and now she wonders if all he ever saw was this thing she’s becoming again: a scared, sickly little god-baby.

And she feels so many things, looking at him now. Part of her — the small part, but the part that takes up all the space — wants to hide from him, but the part of her that still feels betrayed wants to throw herself at him and throw her fists too. And there’s another part, too, one she can’t reach, that feels something very, very different.

She ducks her head, ashamed of herself for feeling so much so strongly.

And Pigsy goes on, so quiet that she almost doesn’t hear him, “I hadn’t seen anyone like you in centuries. A little wisp of a thing, coming into your powers for the first time, no way of knowing what you were... all those centuries, I’d just made peace with the idea I never would again. That I’d seen the last of us born, the last of us grow up, that I...” His voice cracks. “That I’d seen the very last of us. You know?”

Sandy’s chest tightens. “No. I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t. Because you...” He grimaces. “You were a baby. Hell, you’re still a bloody baby. The whole damn world is new to you. How could you possibly understand what it’s like to watch your entire species get hunted to extinction? To have no choice but to help the ones doing it because that’s the only chance you have at staying alive, the only way you can even _hope_ to—”

“Stop.” She’s trying to growl, but it comes out as more like a whine, a whimper, a wail. “Please, stop.”

“You can’t understand,” he whispers, somehow even softer. “You just... you can’t.”

“You kidnapped me,” she says. “You locked me up in a cage you’d built, and told me it was for my own good. I understand _that_.”

He turns away, anguish chasing away his self-pity. “I also did everything I could to protect you,” he whispers. “To make sure it wasn’t worse. But it was like...” Wringing his hands, frustrated with himself, with the situation, with his inability to express it. Words have never been his strong point; even now she winces as he scrambles and fumbles for them. “Like trying to drive back the whole bloody ocean all on your own.”

Sandy looks down at her palms, her fingers, pale and cold. She can still feel her powers shimmering inside her, untapped and stifled by Monica’s iron rule. 

“I _can_ do that,” she reminds him, without irony.

Tripitaka makes a strangled sound in her throat, like she can’t figure out whether to be amused or annoyed. “Sandy...”

Pigsy, unexpectedly, is deathly serious. “Good for you,” he says to Sandy, ignoring Tripitaka. “But I can’t. And trying, it’s like... you may not be able to drown, but I bloody well can.”

Sandy shakes her head, waves off the stupid metaphor with a flick of her wrist, angry and upset.

“Doesn’t matter,” she snaps, changing tack. “You could have fought, but you didn’t. Instead you went to bed with the monsters you should have been fighting, even knowing what they were doing to us. What they were going to do to _me_. Trying not to make it worse doesn’t make it better. It doesn’t matter that you took care of me when I was unwell, or that you tried to make me less scared. It matters that you knew they were going to hurt me, and instead of trying to stop them, you _helped._ ”

Still standing between them, Tripitaka looks helpless and a little bit sick. “We don’t know—”

“Yes we do.”

“Sandy...”

“We know enough, Tripitaka.”

“We—”

“All right, enough.” Pigsy, rolling his eyes at them both, like he’s not the subject of the conversation, like his treachery and cruelty isn’t under inspection. He looks pained and miserable, but determined. “It’s nice of you to take my side, Tripitaka, but she’s right. You knew that about me long before now. I lived with a demon, I slept with a demon, I did a demon’s dirty work. I’ve got more god’s blood on my hands than you’ll likely ever see in your lifetime.” He flashes Sandy a sad look, and doesn’t continue until she meets his eye. “You weren’t the first, and you weren’t the last. You know that.”

Sandy does know that. Of course she does. But—

“But was I the _youngest_?”

His whole body stiffens, like a seizure running through him. And then, blanching deathly pale, he turn away.

It’s all the answer Sandy needs, the haunted look in his eye, the horror and the way he starts to shudder. She expects him to leave it there, like he did the last time she tried to question him, but he doesn’t; this time, at least, he has the strength to stand up and say the words out loud.

“Yeah.” A confession, hollow and broken and utterly worthless. “You were the youngest.”

Sandy nods, feeling cold and raw. She’s shivering again, and not just from the chill that refuses to stay in the past where it belongs. Shivering and shaking all through, and if she stays here for even one more moment she’s sure she’ll do something awful.

“How terrible it must be for you,” she says coldly, “to have to live with that.”

And she spins on her heels, dizzy and half-blind, and stomps up the stairs like the frightened, miserable child she barely remembers.

*

Monica is just finishing up the bath when Sandy finds her.

She doesn’t look up. Maybe she knows who it is by her footsteps — or lack of them — or maybe she sees some part of her reflected in the water; either way, there’s no surprise in her voice when she sighs and says, “All right, Sandy girl?”

Too drained to hold herself upright, Sandy leans against the wall. “Tried to talk to him,” she blurts out, halfway delirious, with neither preamble nor explanation. “Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t.”

If she’s startled by the sudden leap into conversation, Monica doesn’t let it show. She double-checks the warmth of the water, shrugs and mutters to herself, then straightens up with a weary, joint-creaking groan.

“Good enough,” she says, then turns to Sandy with a careless wave. “Have at it.”

Sandy doesn’t move. She’s not sure she has the strength. “Can’t even look him in the eye,” she mumbles, still rambling. “How am I supposed to look into his mind? How am I supposed to—”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something. You and...” She stumbles, looking uncertain, then seems to catch herself. “You and Tripitaka, that is.”

It occurs to Sandy, perhaps for the first time, that Monica must have known Tripitaka as the girl she was before she took the holy title. Must be one of the few still alive who know the name she had before.

She thinks of asking, to satisfy the curious part of her that wants to learn everything she possibly can about the person her heart and soul are pledged to. The temptation is very brief — she respects Tripitaka’s choices and her privacy too much to invade them without permission — but while it lingers it’s a pleasant distraction. She’ll ask one day, maybe, and Tripitaka will either tell her or she won’t; she’s not the only one of them with secrets she’s chosen to keep for herself.

So, with some effort, she focuses on matters a little closer to home.

“She thinks that talking is the answer,” she says, trying to ignore Monica’s chiding, impatient look. “Thinks, if I can talk about it with him before we have to go through it, that might help my mind to stay still when we go in. But the sight of him makes it scream so loud I can’t think at all. Fills my head with noise and violence, makes me feel—”

“I’ll fill you with violence too,” Monica tells her sharply, “if you don’t make good use of that bath. I just put my bloody back out for you, my girl; don’t you make it a wasted effort.”

Sandy shakes herself a little. Not very difficult, as she’s shaking already.

“Right. Yes.” She steps away from the wall, only wobbling a little. “Bath. I’m sorry, my thoughts aren’t...”

“Yeah, I can see that.” She rolls her eye, as no-nonsense and business-like as she always is, and perhaps a little bit evasive too. Like she doesn’t want to spend any more time here than she absolutely has to, like this place makes her suddenly inexpressibly uncomfortable. “Do you want privacy or company?”

It feels like an impossibly complicated question. Sandy’s mind goes blank trying to process it.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I don’t...”

Monica stares at her, head cocked to one side, like she’s trying to figure out how much of her panic-stricken confusion can be blamed on what happened with Locke and how much is just Sandy being Sandy, scatter-brained and distant like she’s always been, the product of too much time spent alone or too many holes in her head. Doesn’t seem to care much in the end, one way or the other; she shrugs again, face lined with the look of someone long accustomed to people making no sense, and turns away with her whole body.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” she says softly. “But I’ll keep the door open. If your friends come knocking, you can ask them in or shoo them away, whichever you like. Work for you?”

She’s facing away from Sandy now, so she probably doesn’t see the way her body floods with relief, the weight of the decision lifted from her shoulders. It is insurmountable, having to think, having to take in the world around her and process her own feelings; it is harder than it should be, harder than it has ever been before, and the simple, effortless kindness of Monica taking the moment into her own hands, taking the hard part away, touches her far more deeply than she should. She finds herself blinking back tears, relief and gratitude mingling into salty heat behind her eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and blames the sudden hoarseness on the chill in her chest, the memory of having been here before, so many years ago.

“Sure.” Monica doesn’t turn back, but there’s an odd sort of stiffness to her shoulders that doesn’t leave until her hand is on the door. “Any time.”

And then she’s gone, and Sandy is alone with the rising steam, the hot water, the old iron bathtub that a part of her knows and another part doesn’t. Alone, completely, for the first time in what feels like forever, and her mind may not be any more quiet but the world around her is. Silent and still, no breath, no voices, no people, friends or enemies. Nothing, just her and the chaos inside.

She strips quickly, climbs into the bath slowly. Lets the water seep into her skin, lets her body reconnect with the only thing in the world that ever made her feel truly safe.

The silence stretches out, the water clings to every part of her, inside and out. She ducks below the surface, breathes in the bubbles and the heat, submerges herself as completely as she can, wonders what it might feel like to drown.

Can’t, of course. Can’t drown, can’t even imagine what such a thing would feel like. Can’t fathom a world where water is a threat and not a lifeline, its pressure inflicting pain not comfort.

Eyes closed, she breathes it in. In and out, as easy as breathing air. Easier, perhaps, in a way she can’t explain or express; it fills her more naturally, water, like she was always meant to breathe this way, like it’s the world above that doesn’t fill her lungs the way it should. The mnemonic razor-pain in her chest eases a little as she breathes, as she settles, as she lies still with the surface rippling above her head, blinking up at the ceiling as it shimmers and distorts, bending itself to blend with the light.

The world below is so still and so quiet. So empty. She can’t block out the clamour in her head, not completely, but there is something unfathomably beautiful about the silence in the world around her, being protected by the water, the way it wraps around her like a cocoon, like a mother’s arms, a loving embrace, like all the myriad shades of solace that she never knew and never imagined she would. Like being held without having to be touched.

Like—

“Sandy?”

The sound bursts through the silence, shattering it like a thousand panes of glass, and like so many beautiful things there’s no getting it back once it’s gone.

 _Tripitaka_.

It is comforting, the sound of her voice, as it always is, but it bubbles through the water, transformed into something new, something sort of wrong-sounding, and despite the parts of her that love and cherish that voice, a little piece of Sandy’s heart sinks.

She surfaces, gasping and choking on air that is suddenly too dry and thin. Blinks the water out of her vision and tries to focus on Tripitaka; she’s staring down at her with wide, terrified eyes, like she really expected to find her drowning.

“Sandy!” The panic makes her voice shrill; it grates along her nerves, makes them burn. “Are you all right?”

Sandy coughs again. The air tears at her lungs, and the pain returns in an instant. “I can breathe water, Tripitaka.”

“You—” She stops, catching herself with a shamefaced blush. “Right. I knew that.”

“And it’s rude to enter without knocking. Especially when someone is bathing.” She doesn’t even try for a smile. “You valued your modesty so highly as a boy, I’d think you wouldn’t need to be reminded of that.”

She says it calmly, without venom, but there is sorrow in her just the same. She misses the silence, the peace and tranquillity of being underwater, the world rippling and bending around her, her breath flowing smoothly in and out of her lungs. The world above the surface is sharp; she’s lived in it for so long now, sometimes she forgets how sharp it really is, jagged against skin made to be underwater.

“You’re right,” Tripitaka says, looking suitably chastened. “I’m sorry. I should have knocked first. But you stormed off so fast. I was worried, I was—”

“You worry too much.” Her voice is too thick, too heavy; there is still water inside her. “Maybe you should stop doing that.”

Tripitaka flinches a little. “Do you want me to?”

It’s not an easy question. Harder, even, than whether or not she wanted to be alone. She can’t seem to answer any questions by herself any more; it makes her feel impotent and useless, makes her want to dive back under the surface and never come back up. Let Tripitaka worry as much as she likes, somewhere Sandy doesn’t have to see or feel the weight of it.

She opens her mouth to speak, though she doesn’t really know what she’d like to say, or whether she should even if she did—

Freezes, muscles locking up, like some small, scared animal, as she notices for the first time a blur of motion in the doorway.

 _Pigsy_.

He’s trying to be unobtrusive, as much a part of the furniture as his bulk will allow, but it’s not really working. Leaning against the wall, eyes fixed on his boots, wringing his hands in front of him like he doesn’t want to be there any more than he expects Sandy to want him there.

And she doesn’t.

She—

Something unpleasant rises up into her throat. Anger, a touch of fear, and something else, a sour-tasting flood that could be bile or water.

She opens her mouth to tell him to leave. To shout at him, or maybe give in to her younger self and beg him not to hurt her again. Tries to say anything, any of the thousand conflicting feelings ricocheting through her— 

But as she tries to speak, her throat seizes, the strange unpleasantness rising even higher, and—

And her lungs begin to spasm, dry air turning to ice water as it bursts up from her chest, and—

And then she’s coughing again.

Violent. Uncontrollable.

Worse than it was when she surfaced, so much worse. There is so much water inside of her, so much, and it is so desperate to get out, and she—

And her chest feels like it’s about to burst—

And she pitches forward, leans over the edge of the tub—

And she’s choking, heaving, spewing water, and—

And she is in so much pain, so scared and so small, and—

And then _he’s_ there.

Pigsy.

And she has no idea when he moved, how he managed to do it so quietly, but there he is, down on his knees but still somehow towering over her, leaning up and in, supporting her body with his own, holding her steady with one big, powerful hand, rubbing circles on her back with the other, finding the rhythm of the spasms in her chest and belly, catching and countering the violence, soothing and settling her, gently, _gently_ , until—

Until the spasms grow slow and then still, until there’s nothing left but the coughing, still painful and jagged but without the violence, without the desperation, the heaving, the water.

She moans.

Coughs.

Leans in, without even really realising what she’s doing, and presses her face to his shoulder.

Somewhere far, far away, Tripitaka says, “Pigsy, I don’t think—”

“Shh.” He rubs Sandy’s back again, so carefully. “I’ve got this.”

And Sandy knows she should be angry, knows she should feel scared and violated and hurt, knows this with every nerve in her body, but she can’t, she doesn’t, she—

She _remembers_.

Remembers shivering on the cold stone floor, bars on the door, the windows, bars everywhere. Remembers the storms inside of her, surging and roaring, remembers the white-capped water rising up from her chest, her stomach, a torrent she couldn’t stop. Remembers his arms, his hands, his immense size, remembers the way his voice would drop, low and gentle whenever he spoke to her, such a strange sound from someone so huge. Remembers wondering, as she coughed and choked and soaked the floor, if he’d be upset with her, if he’d tell the violent demon with the hard eyes and hewn-stone voice, if she would turn her terrible fury into the cage and smite her dead.

Remembers wishing, in her darkest moments, that it would happen, that they’d just get it over with and let the pain end.

Ashamed, she hides her face; she’s not herself, she realises distantly, but she can't fight the tiny, terrified voice inside of her, can’t stop it as it struggles to the surface.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and coughs some more, the sound lost to the fabric of his shirt. “Thought I could control it by now. Thought I could—”

“It’s okay.” His voice sounds strange, wrong and right at the same time, like her old self and her new self are hearing entirely different things. “It’s not important. You feeling better?”

She nods, keeping her face hidden.

She remembers her own voice, high and full of pain — _“I’m not dangerous, I’m good, I can keep the water inside of me!”_ — remembers the miserable look on his face. Remembers feeling ashamed when her body proved her wrong, when the coughing got worse and the water started surging again. She’d tried so hard to be good, to not be dangerous any more, but it still wasn’t enough when the flood came back, when the cold stone and colder steel turned her skin to ice and made her insides freeze, made the pain worse. Remembers coughing and crying, remembers him holding her, soothing her, telling her over and over again that it was all right, promising that she was safe—

And she knew it wasn’t true, even then. Even young and small and sick, she knew that he was lying. But it hurt so much and she felt so bad, so she made herself believe it anyway.

Finally, still breathless, still coughing a little, she pulls back.

“You lied,” she whispers, rasping horribly. “You lied about everything. Even when you were trying to bring me comfort, every word you said was a lie.”

“Yeah.” It’s admirable, she supposes, that he doesn’t try to deny it this time, that he is finally learning how to own up and admit to his mistakes. Somehow, it doesn’t make her feel any better. “Yeah, I lied. I told you that you were safe when I knew you weren’t. I told you I could help you when I knew I couldn’t. I told you that you’d be all right, and...”

He stops, looking more miserable than she’s ever seen him. Sandy feels the water in the bath grow cold, as though responding to her emotions, and her body starts to shiver again too.

“I wasn’t,” she finishes for him, soft and broken. “I wasn’t all right then and I’m not all right now. After you, I was never all right again.”

“Sandy, don’t.”

 _Tripitaka_.

Sandy had all but forgotten she was there. She looks up sharply, finds the familiar face, wrenching and twisting with grief and pain. She’s inched back some way from the tub, watching them from a safe distance with one eye on the door, like she thinks she’ll have to run for help at any second. A wise precaution, probably; given the way things are, Sandy doesn’t blame her.

She takes a breath. Holds it. Lets it out as slowly as she can.

“Tripitaka,” she says; the name sounds strange, like there’s a place inside of her that has never heard it before, the place where she still feels too young, still remembers what it felt like to look up at Pigsy and believe all the lies he told her. “You don’t need to worry. I’m in control of myself. I won’t do anything regrettable.”

“That’s not...” Tripitaka shakes her head, frustrated. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Then what? Because this is difficult enough, and I...”

Her voice breaks.

Tripitaka takes pity on her, whispering, “I know,” in a voice so low and ragged it’s almost like she’s reached in and stolen some of her pain for herself. “But Sandy... you _are_ all right. You’re strong and powerful and brave, and so, so...” She stumbles over what she wanted to say, then clears her throat and reaches for another word. “So _good_.”

The word resonates with something in her head, something unpleasant, and Sandy feels her body start to react, the shivering turning to shuddering, to shaking.

“There is violence in my head,” she rasps, feeling the words out carefully. “Water in my lungs and in my stomach. My mind is being held together by a demon’s magic, my thoughts fractured and threatening to shatter at every turn. I am not good, Tripitaka, and I am not all right. And you can say it a thousand times, but you cannot make it true. Not any more than he could make it true all those years ago.”

She looks at Pigsy, head tilted in a question that doesn’t really have any words.

He breathes out slowly, steadily, like he’s collecting his thoughts, then quietly says, “I was trying to comfort you.”

Compelling, convincing. Sandy wants to believe it, just as she wanted to believe everything he said back then. Such a wonderful thought, to wrap herself up in his shroud of compassion and would-be kindness.

Tempting, yes, so tempting. But she remembers now, and she can’t pretend she doesn’t. How she was then, how _he_ was then. She remembers that Pigsy, sees him in her mind’s eye as clearly as she sees the one kneeling in front of her now. Knows him, just as well as she knows the very different person who has kept her company on the quest for months and months, who has fought demons by her side, who has been a friend, the trusted companion who tried and failed to teach her how to cook.

“Were you?” she asks softly. Her voice is low, still a little rusty, and she tries so hard to believe it’s water and not salt making it stick. “Were you really trying to comfort me? Or were you just trying to comfort yourself?”

He sits back on his haunches, arms spread in that way he has of deflecting responsibility, of pretending he’s not to blame, that it was really someone else and he’s just an innocent bystander. Another breath, maybe two, and then the excuses will start. Sandy knows this. It happens every time, without fail.

“I...” And he sighs, and he closes his eyes, and there it is, right on cue: “You don’t understand.”

Anger ripples to life again, a welcome heat after so much cold and confusion. Bubbles burning and bursting in her blood, seething in her chest, her throat. She leans forward again, not with fear or pain this time, but with the intent to take him by the collar, to shake him, yell at him, to do everything she promised Tripitaka she would not do. Her fingers flex, her veins seem to boil inside of her, and it takes every ounce of strength she has to hold on to her control, to remember the part of her that wants to make Tripitaka proud and place it above the part of her that wants to inflict her pain on the monster who caused it.

“Then tell me,” she whispers, low and ragged but at least mostly herself. “ _Make_ me understand. Because I am tired of hating you and being afraid of you, and not understanding why you would do the awful things you did.”

He sighs again, this time softly, and then he’s on his feet, shrinking back to the door like the coward he is, putting as much space between them as the small room allows.

“You weren’t the only one who was scared,” he confesses. “Every time I looked at you, I saw what was going to happen. And I didn’t want...”

Eyes closed, his chest heaves, like he’s trying to block out the present and the past at the same time. Sandy watches him try to breathe, feeling empty and detached.

“You didn’t want to admit you were a part of it.”

He doesn’t deny it.

“Look,” he says instead, voice rising with a sort of desperation. “Before you showed up, it was... I mean, not _easy_ , but it was a damn sight easier to pretend not to see. I did what I had to do. At least, that’s how I spun it for myself. I did what anyone would to survive. And if a god got taken on my watch, that just meant he wasn’t fast enough or she wasn’t strong enough or I was just better. And it... it was their own damn fault for being too slow or too weak or too... too whatever. They’re the ones who screwed up, letting themselves get caught. It wasn’t _me_.”

“But it _was_ ,” Sandy points out. “The whole time. You were the one taking them, hurting them, locking them up in the prison you’d built to hold them.” She shakes her head. “It _was_ you. All of it.”

“I know that,” he snaps, naturally defensive. “I’m not telling you what was real, I’m telling you what I told myself. I made myself believe it for so long, it was the only truth I really had. But then you came along, sick and scared and so bloody _young_ , and I couldn’t...” His throat convulses, his shoulders shake; Sandy watches him and feels nothing at all. “How was I supposed to convince myself it was your fault? You were barely out of the cradle, and I... what I did...”

 _I know what you did,_ Sandy thinks.

The words spin inside her head, bouncing off the walls of her mind, echoing until it’s all nonsense, but this time she doesn’t say them out loud.

Can’t, she realises. Because just like Pigsy all those years ago, telling them both again and again and again that she would be all right, it is not enough, saying and thinking the words, to make them truth. She can’t will herself to remember what happened just by saying she does, can’t drag the memories back to the surface by throwing herself at Pigsy and lashing out with her anger and her fear. She can’t run away and claim to have courage.

She falls back, lets her head strike the rim of the bath, lets the jolt of physical pain drive those untrue, useless thoughts out of her mind. Lets the water, sloshing over the side, cover her skin and wash away the nightmare things she pretends to know, the falsehoods and fabrications she wraps around herself, no different to the lies he once called comfort.

She breathes deeply. Holds on to what little memory she still has. The way he tried to be kind, his big strong arms around her ailing body, his hands at her back, steadying her as she coughed up her insides. His stories, likely no more true than his promises, but so exciting to a child who had never met another real god before. The way his back would bow when he stood to leave, bent double by some strange feeling she could not understand.

 _He cared,_ she thinks, and she remembers now that it’s the truth. _He hurt you, and he helped them to hurt you even more, but he did, he cared, he—_

She closes her eyes, sinks down below the water’s surface, down and down until no part of her touches the air, until she is surrounded completely by the one thing she can trust, the one thing that has always spoken the truth.

And for a time, she just breathes. Water in her lungs again, but this time it’s because she put it there herself.

Then, at last, she sits back up. Opens her eyes, looks up at him, his face twisted with grief and anguish, regret and sorrow and—

And she breathes some more. Air this time, sharp and serrated in her lungs. And she swallows the memory of pain and fear, and—

And she says, “Show me.”

He blinks.

“Show you what?”

His voice says he knows, but he needs to hear it said. And she doesn’t want to do that, doesn’t want to give life and voice to her fear and pain, but even if he deserves nothing else in the world, he at least deserves that.

Her heart kicks against her ribs. For a moment, just a moment, her lungs flood again with water, but she holds it down this time and holds herself still. Holds on to the edge of the tub and breathes air like her life depends on it.

“Everything,” she whispers. “What you did. What you felt. All of it.”

Standing between them, a tether for them both, Tripitaka sucks in a breath. “Sandy...”

Sandy shakes her head. Can’t look at her; if she does, she really will shatter.

“I want to know,” she says. “I need to know. I can’t find peace until I do. And I want...” She swallows. Salt on her tongue, water in her throat. Swallows it down and down, until she can speak again. “I want so badly to find peace.”

Behind her, Pigsy lets out a desperate sob. Sandy doesn’t look back, but she feels it, his pain carving a path through the water like a shark scenting blood.

“Yeah,” he whispers, to her and perhaps to himself as well. “Me too.”

*


	16. Chapter 16

*

She stays in the bath until it’s as cold as her veins, until she starts to shiver again just from being in it.

The others take their leave after a little while, when it becomes obvious that the conversation has run its course. Sandy appreciates the respect for her privacy, late as it is, but the gesture is rather pointless by then. Her peace has already been shattered, the sweet silence of still water boiled away by too many feelings and too much talking, and she knows herself enough to know — even if it’s the only thing she does know — that there will be no getting it back.

She submerges herself again for a time, blocking out the world above and all of its blinding light, but the effort is futile; what little tranquillity she might have found there before has long since evaporated, replaced by something far less pleasant. Memory, sharp-edged and jagged; it bites into the corners of her mind, makes her think too much, too hard, makes her reach for things that aren’t there yet. Echoes of moments, shadows of things she’s not begun to piece together, whispers and murmurs and—

Her insides feel wrong. Her everything feels wrong.

Hasn’t felt right, any part of her, since she fell out of Locke’s memory. She’s been feeling disoriented and confused, losing herself without warning or reason, falling through the cracks in her mind, and it hasn’t helped at all that she’s suddenly remembering — suddenly _feeling_ — so much all at once. 

Didn’t expect to find herself coughing up water in Pigsy’s arms, didn’t expect to remember how it felt the first time, all those years ago, didn’t expect to find herself halfway drowning in all the things she felt back then, what a nightmare it was to need comfort so desperately she’d take it from anyone, even him.

It is too much. Too confusing. She is still so angry, so frightened by the sight of him, the certainty of what is coming for them both: his memories, not jagged but clean, a blade forged for gutting not carving. She is angry, yes, and frightened, yes, and so many other terrible things, _yes_ , but her body remembers how his hands would soothe and settle it, how his great big palm would rest across her back as she coughed herself sick, how his arms would hold her like she weighed nothing at all, how his broad shoulders would support her when she couldn’t support herself, like he was made for healing not harming.

He was strong, but he was also unimaginably gentle, and it had been such a long time since Sandy had seen both of those things together.

Now, of course, she knows that he is capable of all that and more. Power and kindness and everything in between, every colour of compassion and every shade of strength. She’s fought against him as an enemy, fought beside him as a friend; she knows his abilities as intimately as her own.

And yet...

And yet, she is as frightened of him now as she was when she knew nothing at all.

She wonders how long she’d have to stay in the bath, feeling her temperature drop with the water, before she can make sense of all those things, before she can reconcile the present with the past, the things she knows so well with the things she doesn’t know at all.

Probably longer than Tripitaka would allow. Certainly longer than Monica would.

She’s starting to feel unwell again by the time she gives up, the cold water pressing down on her chest like a soaked cloth, heavy and uncomfortable. She wants to go and seek out the Shaman, wants to beg him to fix whatever’s happening to her, or at least the part of her that can’t seem to shake off a decades-old chill, wants to do whatever it takes to blunt the razors hacking at her lungs. 

But the Shaman is busy saving someone else’s life, and Sandy has spent too much time clinging to him already.

Her muscles are stiff and aching when she finally drags herself out of the tub, as much from the inertia as the drop in temperature. She feels shaky all over, a headache starting to pulse behind her eyes, and the simple act of dressing, of struggling back into her clothes and boots, into the body and face of someone so much older than she feels, is a labour almost too great to endure.

She finds the others downstairs, in the main tavern. Monica, as always, behind the bar, and Tripitaka seated with Pigsy at a small table. No customers, no-one else at all, only the three of them; it looks so normal, so unworthy of mention that for a moment Sandy can only stand there and stare, trying to take it all in, the difference between the world inside her head and the one with her friends in it.

Monica studies her long and hard when she enters, furrowing her brow so deep that Sandy has to glance down to be sure she’s not dripping water all over the floor. Her memories may be patchy at the moment, but she remembers quite well how belligerent Monica gets when she finds water in places that shouldn’t be wet.

There’s no water this time, though, and thus no reason for the furrowed brow. Sandy frowns, confused and anxious in equal measure. “Did I take too long?”

“We don’t charge by the hour,” Monica says, a gentle if gritty rebuke. “Though heaven knows, we bloody should.”

Sandy can’t tell if she’s supposed to apologise or not. Monica so often sounds serious, even when she’s not, and Sandy has never had much talent for interpreting tone. Blessedly, she’s spared the effort of trying by Tripitaka, who waves her over with a smile that smothers even Monica’s surly look.

“You didn’t take too long,” she assures her. “How are you feeling?”

Sandy doesn’t have the heart to tell her she’s still freezing cold, that any measure of comfort or peace she had was drained out of the bath the moment it was interrupted.

“Don’t know,” she says instead. “Head still doesn’t feel right. But I can remember some things a little better now, I think. From when I was...” She glances at Pigsy, swallows hard. “From my time there.”

Pigsy averts his eyes. Tripitaka does not. “That’s good.”

Sandy isn’t sure ‘good’ is the word she’d use, but she’s just smart enough to keep that to herself. She nods, wets her lips, and averts her eyes. “Ready to learn the rest, anyway. At least, I think I...”

Her stomach sours as she tries to give the thought a voice, and she finds herself having to swallow hard, once and then a second time, rather too convulsively for anyone’s comfort.

Tripitaka inches back, looking nervous. “Take it easy,” she says.

Sandy nods. Swallows a third time, then recaptures her wavering control. “Sorry. I only mean, we should—”

“—not be too hasty.” The interruption is firm, insistent. “Before we start bracing ourselves for anything, we need to make sure the Shaman’s willing to keep going in the first place.”

“Or able to,” Sandy agrees sadly. She remembers the way Locke screamed, remembers her lying so still, so close to lifeless, and the guilt wraps itself around her throat like a python. “I hope he’s well. I hope they both are.”

Pigsy straightens up a little in his seat, keen ears picking up on the words ‘they’ and ‘both’. For the first time, Sandy realises that he might not have heard what happened, that it might mean something to him, that he might want to know if some harm had befallen his former lover and employer during all of this. Probably not healthy, almost definitely not a good idea, but still. Sandy has learned from her own experience that it’s not so easy to switch off old feelings, even when it’s the best for everyone.

Sitting up even straighter, Pigsy presses, with all the subtlety of a thrown brick, “What do you mean ‘both’?”

Tripitaka looks up at Sandy. Sandy looks down at her boots.

Neither of them say anything straight away, and that’s probably a mistake. The air in the room seems to thicken as Pigsy’s feelings surge. Like the water in the bath responding to the tide of Sandy’s emotions, the dry, moistureless air seems to do the same to Pigsy’s, like his heart is drawing on the invisible lightning, the energy crackling unseen all around them. Sandy doesn’t know if his powers truly work that way or if it’s just a sort of warning, but it’s effective either way; she doesn’t like the way her hair stands on end or the way her nerves ignite as though bracing for something intangible and very dangerous.

Tripitaka doesn’t seem to like it either. She’s gritting her teeth, shoulders hunched, like she halfway expects the floorboards to catch fire underneath her feet.

“Pigsy,” she says carefully. “I’m sure the Shaman has it under control.”

Sandy recognises the hitch in her voice, the way she says his name like a warning. she says Sandy’s name that way all the time now, it seems, so much so that she’s all but forgotten it can sound any other way. It’s reassuring, in a not-exactly-pleasant sort of way, hearing someone else’s spoken that way.

Pigsy, on the other hand, is not reassured at all. Something rumbles in his chest, a rolling sound like thunder. Not quite a growl — Sandy has driven back enough of those herself lately to know the difference — but something dark and dangerous just the same. The air gets drier, harder to breathe; Sandy feels dehydrated.

“Has _what_ under control?” Pigsy demands. His eyes flash as he catches the evasion in Tripitaka’s, and then his voice rises to an uncontrolled bellow. “What the bloody hell happened?!”

It’s not really anger. Not true anger, anyway. More the blind lashing-out kind of response that comes from fear and worry and too many pure-hearted feelings. Sandy has seen this before, in all of her friends, whenever one of them is in danger; it is often touching, occasionally annoying, and usually cause for one of the others to hold them down lest they do something reckless.

It has never, in all the times she’s seen it, made her flinch the way it does now.

Before she even really recognises the reaction in herself, she’s already in motion, stumbling backwards and away, eyes huge and chest heaving. _Panic_ , she realises, and it makes no sense at all, the pounding of her heart, the hammering of her pulse in her ears, the way her whole body is suddenly in flight mode, terrified for its existence, blind to everything but the need to escape, to run, to _hide_.

It makes no sense at all. But then, maybe it makes a lot of sense too. She is still raw, still so young inside, and though a part of her remembers the comfort she found in his moments of softness, still he is huge and hulking, and when he shouts the whole world seems to quake.

She quakes too, inching back and back and back until her shoulders strike the wall, until she’s pressing herself against it, into it, like she can will her body to become part of the wooden surface, invisible and intangible and impossible to hit.

 _Invisible_ , she thinks, desperate and delirious. _You’ve done it before, you know how to do it, invisible, disappear, please—_

“Easy, girl.”

Not so invisible as she’d like, apparently. In less than two strides, Monica has crossed the room, positioning her broad body in front of Sandy’s like a sort of shield.

She holds by the arm, firm but gentle; her grip is much tighter than Tripitaka’s, and as strong as iron. Sandy might be upset by the intrusion, except the relief at having something solid to hide behind makes every part of her feel better. The rough treatment doesn’t seem so rough when it comes with a sense of being protected.

“I’m not...” She breathes raggedly, focuses on the bite of Monica’s fingernails. She’s still quivering, though, and she doesn’t know how to stop. “I’m sorry, I...”

“You’re not the one who needs to be sorry.” Monica shoots Pigsy a stern, no-nonsense sort of look. “This is a civilised establishment. You of all people should know that. Raise your voice like that in here again, and I’ll boot you out so fast your head will spin.”

He ignores her. Ignores both of them. Like he can’t see anything but Tripitaka. Sandy’s insides unclench a little; she lets herself pretend she really has become invisible, sheltered behind Monica’s wide hips.

“What happened?” he asks again, still focused on Tripitaka. Not quite so loud this time, a little more controlled, but not any less urgent or worried. “Is Locke all right? What did he do to her?”

His concern should be touching. Is touching, in a way. At least, it’s touching to the part of her that sees him as he is now, the part of her that knows him, that has travelled with him and fought by his side and watched as he’s learned and grown and become a better person. Touching, if sad, that he still cares for his former lover even after everything she did, that his heart still has enough of a spark that it aches when it thinks she might be hurting.

But then there’s the other part. The part that shouldn’t be there, the part that is much bigger inside of her right now than it should be. And that part is young and confused, too much of both those things to grasp the nuance of what she’s seeing and too scared to even try; that part of her doesn’t like loud noises or loud voices, and it doesn’t understand why the god who tells her stories about gods is so upset about the demon that wants to hurt her and—

And she knows that’s wrong. In some corner of herself, at least she knows.

But that corner seems to be shrinking more and more with every moment, and the other part is growing, swelling, rising until there’s nothing else in her at all, only fear and confusion and water.

“It’s complicated,” Tripitaka is saying to Pigsy, as gently as she can given the situation; the softness of her voice helps Sandy come back to herself, if only just a little bit. “We don’t know what happened, exactly. But something went wrong. And she...”

Pigsy’s eyes grow dark and hard. Sandy — the part of her that feels wrong — whines, cowering behind Monica.

“Is she all right?” he asks again. “I don’t want to know what you did in her bloody head. I don’t want to know what you saw or what happened, I just... I just want to know if she’s _all right_.”

Tripitaka chews her lip, keeping her eyes averted. “I don’t know,” she says, soft and very serious. “But when we left, she was... it wasn’t looking too good.”

Pigsy makes a terrible, deafening sound, like a howl that sort of trails off into a sob.

Sandy knows that sound very well. The day she was abandoned by her father, the last moments of her life she remembered with any clarity, before all of this, she made noises like that for hours and hours. Howling, wailing, crying out to the heavens, just waiting for something to come along and make it better. But no-one ever did, and so all she could do was stand up, weak-kneed and shell-shocked and still in tears, turn her face to the setting sun, and start walking.

And that’s exactly what Pigsy does now.

He looks Tripitaka up and down for about half a second, just long enough to see that she’s speaking true, that she really doesn’t know any more than what than she’s already told him, and then he spins on his heels and moves like lightning.

Even on a good day, he is a towering beast of a god. There’s a reason why Locke chose him to be the face of her operations: he’s a living, breathing, threat, a warning on two legs. He does it without having to try, intimidating even while he’s smiling, but now...

Now, at his most determined, his most ferociously furious, he is a nightmare.

So much so that even Monica takes a step back at the sight of him. Usually unshakeable, even she avoids his eye now, scrambling back to get out of his way, shoving Sandy behind her, like she’s forgetting for a moment, almost as completely as Sandy is, that she’s not the helpless child she once was, that she’s far more powerful than a presumably-human barkeep.

Not that Sandy minds her protective instincts at the moment; she is frightened, lost inside herself, and Pigsy is as terrifying as she’s ever seen him. Drawn up to his full height, angry and upset, he moves like a thundercloud, rumbling and rolling over everything in his path, shaking the seams of the building as he muscles his way to the door.

And then he’s gone, taking most of the air from the room with him. The door shakes as he slams it shut behind him, shoving it out of his way with such ferocity and violence that it nearly drops off its hinges.

The silence left in his wake is deafening. The air is unbearably still, and it is a long, stuffy moment before it starts circulating again, like it’s holding its breath to be sure the world is safe again. The building settles, too, floorboards and walls creaking as the pressure seems to lift, and Sandy feels all the strength go out of her body. She slumps back against the wall, breathless and much weaker than she has any cause to be; she’d probably fall to the ground if not for Monica’s grip on her arm, and her sober, serious voice in her ear.

“Always did have a flair for the dramatic, that boy,” she mutters dryly.

Sandy makes a small miserable sound, and musters a nod.

Tripitaka, still on the other side of the room, is watching them both with a tight, anxious frown. “Are you okay?” she asks. “You look kind of...”

She leaves the rest unsaid, or perhaps leaves Sandy’s shaken appearance to speak for itself. And it does; now that the world has righted itself again, now that Pigsy is gone and her memories along with him, she feels like a fool, like the child she keeps insisting she’s not any more. Cringing and cowering and hiding her face, scurrying behind Monica’s skirts like her younger self used to do often. But she is not, she can’t be, she’s _not_ —

“No.” The word comes out hoarse and tremulous. It’s an answer to the question, yes, but it feels like something more important as well. “No, I’m not okay. Too much of her, not enough of me, and it’s wrong, I’m not like that any more, I’m not. I’m not afraid, I haven’t been afraid in a long time, I’m not, I don’t, I...”

She closes her eyes. Tries to focus on what little she does know, the small shimmering certainties that hover just beyond her reach. She is grown, she is a god. She is strong and powerful, and she has spent her whole life teaching herself to not be scared.

She is—

She—

And then Monica’s hand is gone, replaced by a smaller, slimmer one. Sandy opens her eyes to find Tripitaka standing there instead, frowning up at her and gripping her by the arms and saying her name over and over over in so many different ways.

“Sandy.” Quiet, urgent, and then a little louder. “Something’s not right. I think...”

Sandy sighs. Doesn’t want to hear it, though she knows it’s true.

“You think we should go and ask the Shaman for help.” Another sigh, heavier and a little fearful. “Even though he explicitly told us—”

“I don’t care.” Hard enough that Sandy flinches again, then instantly hates herself for it; she’s just proving Tripitaka’s point, she knows, flinching at nothing, and confirming her own unwelcome suspicions as well. “Pigsy’s going to be enough of a distraction by himself. Another one won’t kill him.” And then she recoils as well, as though realising too late what she’s just said. “I mean... I _hope_ it won’t kill him.”

“What if it kills _her_?” Sandy asks quietly. “Locke. Would you care?”

“Of course I care.” There’s a quaver to her voice, though, like maybe that’s not the whole truth, like she’s trying to convince herself more than Sandy. “Just... not as much as I care about you.”

Sandy understands that far too well, and she rather wishes she didn’t.

“Shouldn’t care,” she mutters, keeping her eyes downcast. “She’s the reason I’m like this. Part of it, anyway. Why should I care if I’m the reason she dies or... or becomes the same thing she made me?”

Tripitaka leans in to give her a rib-bruising hug. “Because you’re good,” she whispers. “In spite of everything that happened to you, you’re still good.”

There’s that word again: _good_. Sandy has to bite down hard to keep from ducking out of Tripitaka’s arms and hiding from it. Has to bite down, too, to keep from bowing and bending her body, burying her face in the crook of Tripitaka’s neck and breathing in the fabric of her robes, hiding not from the word but inside of it, inside the idea that she might be, that maybe there’s a reason Tripitaka keeps saying she’s—

“No.” Speaking mostly to herself, but it still carries. “I’m not, I don’t, I...” She swallows, knowing Tripitaka will feel the spasm through their bodies. “Don’t call me that.”

Tripitaka pulls back, peers at her through narrowed eyes. “Why?” she asks, voice tightening. “What’s wrong?”

Sandy shakes her head. Shakes all over, the tremors in her body following the tremors in her head and heart, always so close behind, it seems. She can feel the echo of something so much bigger than she is, her own voice whispering and whimpering at the edges of her mind, high and frightened, trying so hard to be defiant.

She feels so small, so reedy and waifish, but she’s not; the person in her body is very different to the one in her head, and the contradiction makes her feel twisted and tangled up in both those places. She wants to hide, wants to curl up in Tripitaka’s arms and become as small and helpless as she feels, but she can’t because her body is tall and strong and teeming with power; she would smother Tripitaka by accident if she dared to try. It’s wrong, she’s wrong, and her body and mind are both so afraid of hurting—

“I tried,” she whispers. Not really here any more, not present, not herself, not really much of anything at all. “Tried to be good, tried not to be dangerous. I tried, I...”

And the pain in her chest is back, ice-sharp and waterlogged, and she tries with everything she has to hold on to who she is, who she became, older and stronger and healthier.

Tripitaka squeezes her arms, uses the physicality to try and keep her grounded. “Sandy?”

Sandy coughs. Water surges up in her lungs; she holds it down with a desperate strength.

“Please,” she rasps.

That shouldn’t be enough, one stupid, meaningless word. She doesn’t even really know what she’s asking for, what she wants, much less how to make herself heard. She barely knows where she is, barely even knows who she is; the only thing she knows with any certainty is that she is definitely not the person Tripitaka is looking at.

Still, though, Tripitaka holds her, keeps her close and safe, steadies her and protects her from herself, from the confusion and madness. Does all of that like she somehow understands, like she can grasp all the impossible, unbearable things Sandy can’t even grasp for herself.

 _Anchor_ , a small, wayward corner of mind whispers, and she doesn’t remember what the word means but she knows it's there to keep her from drowning.

“Okay,” Tripitaka is saying, with a quiet sort of urgency. “Let’s get you to the Shaman.”

Sandy nods. Catches the word in her mouth, tests it on her tongue: “Shaman.”

And realises, numb with horror, that she does not recognise it at all.

*

Within minutes, or so it seems, she is completely, utterly lost.

Her thoughts falling apart before she has a chance to capture them, her vision growing dim and then too sharp and then going black; it is a miracle she can still walk.

She’s sure she knows the streets, but she doesn’t recognise them either, doesn’t really recognise any part of the world around her. She’s having a hard time holding on to her name, her identity, and it is increasingly rarely — only when she’s at her most lonely and desperate — that she recognises the little monk at her side. Holding her hand, tight but with devastating tenderness, looking up at her like she’s something even smaller than she feels, like she’s precious. Smiling sometimes, and saying her name, keeping it on the air to help her remember: _Sandy, Sandy, Sandy..._

But hers is not the name Sandy needs to hold on to.

 _Tripitaka_. Little monk, big name. It feels important.

She holds it as tight as she can. Tighter than her hand, tighter than she’s ever held anything in her whole life.

“It’s okay,” Tripitaka is telling her, feverish and trembling and so afraid. “It’s okay, you’re going to be okay.”

Sandy shakes her head. She wants to believe it, so badly, but she is too frightened and every inch of her is saying something very different. Her head feels like it’s splitting, like maybe a part of it has split already; she can’t think and she can barely speak, and when she looks around at this place she’s sure she should know she sees only strangeness and confusion. She recognises nothing and understands even less; her head hurts so much and her chest is razor-sharp with too much coughing and she feels—

“Wrong.” Blurted out, desperate and frightened. “Everything’s wrong, inside and out, I’m wrong, this isn’t right, I...” She shudders, and it rocks through her whole body, makes her feel sick. “I feel broken.”

Tripitaka flinches, yanking her hand back, like Sandy has said something really awful, something cutting and cruel; a part of her, buried deep beneath the maelstrom, thinks that maybe she did, but she doesn’t know why or how, can’t remember why that word makes Tripitaka go tense and look at her like she’s a monster.

“Don’t say that.” She looks stricken, caught between hurt and anger, and her voice is wracked with tremors. “You’re not made of glass, Sandy, you’re not—”

Sandy whines. “Are you sure?”

“I... yes!” Less pain in her voice now, like a kind of self-preservation instinct, like she thinks it’ll hurt less somehow if she can wrap it all up in a bubble of anger. “Of course I’m sure.”

Sandy nods, though she doesn’t really believe it.

“Feel like I am,” she mumbles. “Like I’m drowning, except I don’t think I can drown. And I can’t, I don’t… I feel like there are pieces of me everywhere, inside and outside, and I don’t know what else to call it if not ‘broken’, and I...” She swallows another miserable whine; a part of her hates itself for being so pitiful, but the rest of her can’t imagine being any other way. “I’m _frightened_.”

Tripitaka’s face crumples, like she wants to cry. Feeling small and lost in her head, Sandy wants to do that too.

“I know you are.” It’s a whisper, heavy with grief and a kind of pain Sandy does not understand, as deep and brutal as the water in her chest. “I’m frightened too.”

Sandy nods. Wants to believe it. Wants to believe _her_ , this little sort-of monk she only halfway remembers, the tiny body that feels so big when it touches her, small arms that hold her with such strength, delicate fingers that grip her palm like they think they can save her life.

She is a contradiction, so many things all at once — Sandy’s headache worsens when she looks at her for too long, when she tries to pierce the fog for her sake — but she is also warm and the most beautiful human she’s ever seen, and she looks up at her like she would give up her life to protect her. And Sandy doesn’t understand that either, why anyone would do such a thing for a wretch like her, but she knows that it feels good.

“Please,” she whispers. “Don’t leave me.”

And she doesn’t understand why Tripitaka’s eyes fill with water when she says, “Never.”

*

She doesn’t recognise the palace, or any of the things or people in it.

They climb the winding spiral staircase for what feels like hours, up and round and up and round, until Sandy is reeling from trying to count the steps, until she feels nauseous from all the looping circles. She loses her balance a few times, disoriented, but Tripitaka never lets her fall.

She keeps her close, keeps a firm grip on her hand, and Sandy recites the name inside her head, again and again and again until she can’t hear or think anything else, _Tripitaka, Tripitaka_ , and she knows that it’s terribly important, knows that it means the world to her, but she can’t recall why.

They reach the top at last, and step out into an enormous bedroom overflowing with people and voices and chaos.

She doesn’t recognise them, any of them, but her body responds and reacts as if she does. Instinct, sharp and powerful, setting her nerves on fire, making her flinch and hide behind Tripitaka. Stupid, she knows; she feels small, she feels insignificant, but her body is too long and lean to be concealed by such a tiny monk. But she can’t fight her instincts, the need to hide from loud voices, from anger, from the cracks in the air. And so, even knowing that it’s futile, she tries.

A demon in the bed. Silent, the only one who is. Another demon standing over her, scowling and hunching his shoulders muttering to himself; his voice is low, but his anger is a living thing.

She knows them both, she’s sure, but she can’t say how or why.

Two gods on the other side of the room, shouting at each other. One, the shorter of the two, has positioned himself carefully between the other and the bed, like he’s trying to protect him from the demons, or maybe protect the demons from him. The other, one not quiet as angry, is still somehow much more scary; he towers over his friend, huge and vast in all directions, and he has a haunted look on his face that makes Sandy’s spine twitch.

She knows them too, but her mind is just as blank when she tries to remember how or why. Can’t remember anything about anything, it seems, but somehow her nerves are still screaming.

“I don’t...” The pain in her head spikes, thrown by too many conflicting signals, too many half-memories and sensations. She blinks down at Tripitaka, half-blinded, and whispers, in a voice that’s not her own, “Everyone in this room has tried to kill me.”

“Uh.” Tripitaka is staring at her. “That’s... actually true.”

Sandy feels even sicker. “I don’t know how I know that.”

“It’s okay.” Cool hand touching her face; Sandy closes her eyes and breathes in the sensation, the only thing in the world that makes any kind of sense. “You’re confused. But it’s okay: we’re here to get help.”

And she takes her hand back, and all its fleeting comforts, and steps forward into the clamour of noise and people.

Feeling exposed, Sandy cringes back against the wall. Sinks down and tries to make herself small, watching with a panic she can’t explain or understand as Tripitaka moves to speak with the others.

“How is she?”

She’s addressing the demon, the one who’s not in the bed, and there’s a nervous hush to her voice, like she’s afraid of being attacked for saying the wrong thing. It doesn’t exactly set Sandy’s mind at ease.

The demon grunts, but he doesn’t attack her. The knots in Sandy’s muscles loosen just a little.

“Alive,” he says to Tripitaka, in a flat monotone. “You may thank your stars.”

“Not good, though,” the big god says. His voice, even hushed and low as it is, makes Sandy feel weak on the inside, her bones turning to water, and when he turns to look at her they lose what little strength they have; if she wasn’t already sitting, she might have fallen. “You should’ve told me sooner. I should’ve been here with them, not lounging around in that blasted tavern like some sort of worthless layabout.”

“You _are_ a worthless layabout,” the other god points out. It’s mostly playful, Sandy thinks, but it’s difficult to know for sure when she barely recalls her own name. “Besides, what would you have done here? Other than get in the way, I mean.”

“Not now, Monkey.” As Sandy commits the strange-but-oddly-familiar name to memory — such as it is, cracked and full of holes — Tripitaka turns back to the demon. “If you’re done with Locke, Sandy needs your help. She’s... not herself.”

Still on the ground, Sandy whimpers her affirmation.

The demon glowers at them both, eyes flashing fury.

“You had _one_ task,” he snarls at Tripitaka. “To keep your little god tethered to herself. To anchor her if she began to drift. To hold her delicate, fragile mind together in my absence. That was your one responsibility. Your _only_ responsibility. And you come to me now, as I labour to keep my own brethren alive, and claim you couldn’t even manage that?”

Tripitaka meets his fire-flooded eyes, unflinching. “I’m human,” she says simply.

“And I am _exhausted_.” Squinting through the dull haze of her fear and confusion, Sandy can see the honesty in him; his eyes are shadowed, in spite of his fury, and smudged with dark circles. “Do you truly believe my powers have no limit? That I can simply move from one psychic emergency to the next, hour after hour, moment after moment, without end?”

Tripitaka looks a little stung. She tries to be subtle about it, but the look on her face makes it clear that she did in fact believe that, at least to some extent.

“I wouldn’t say that,” she mumbles nonetheless, rather too defensively. “I mean, not exactly.”

“You expect too much from me,” the demon snaps, voice shot through with venom and weariness. “As is typical for your kind. You demand that I lead you into treacherous, uncharted waters, then beg my help when you lose your way and begin to drown. I cannot be held responsible for your blind-sighted idiocy or your arrogance. I cannot be held responsible when you refused to heed my warnings in the first place. I cannot...”

He breaks off, voice cracking sharply; somewhere in the back of her mind, Sandy thinks this is a strange, unprecedented thing. Monkey places a hand on his shoulder, and it’s hard to say who is more surprised. The demon blinks but doesn't resist the contact, and Tripitaka takes a lumbering step backwards, like she’s been struck a blow.

“I didn’t...” she starts, stammering. “I’m sorry.”

“I _cannot_ ,” the demon repeats, with the utter exhaustion of someone conceding defeat after a long and bloody war. “I cannot mend everyone at once. I cannot hold every mind in this room together. I cannot wear myself down, again and again and again, alone and without assistance, and yet still be expected to give more.” His eyes flash again, but the fire behind them is so weak that even Sandy doesn’t flinch. “I cannot. Do you understand me, human? I simply _cannot_.”

As he speaks, Monkey — the least intimidating of the gods and demons in the room — lets go of his shoulder and turns to look at Sandy; he studies her from across the room, looking very much like he wants to injure someone. Huddled as she is on the floor, hugging herself and trying not to make a sound, Sandy hopes she paints an unintimidating picture. She doesn’t want to have to fight him, and she can no longer remember if that’s something she should be concerned about.

“Is it that bad?” he asks Tripitaka, when the demon has finished his ranting.

Tripitaka looks at Sandy too, but her face is soft and sweet. Comforting, if a little hazy at the edges. It makes Sandy think she might be safe after all, even in a room filled with enemies. She doesn’t touch her, doesn’t sit down beside her, but her eyes seem to promise that she would cross the whole room, maybe the whole palace, in a single step if Sandy needed her to.

It’s overwhelming and a little scary, the idea that someone might care about her as much as all that, and despite the warm feeling settling over her chest, Sandy hears herself whimper.

“I don’t know,” Tripitaka says to Monkey. Her voice is low, like she thinks Sandy won’t be able to hear it if she’s subtle enough. “But it’s definitely getting worse.”

Monkey grunts. Narrows his eyes, still frowning at Sandy, and—

And then, all of a sudden, he’s crouched in front of her, peering deep into her eyes. Looking through her, almost, like he’s trying to find something in the empty space behind her eyes. Trying to find _her_ , possibly, or some little piece of her he might recognise.

Apparently he doesn’t find it, because he sits back on his haunches after a moment, looking guarded and unhappy, and says, “Do you remember me?”

Sandy shakes her head, though it’s not quite that simple.

“Feel like I should,” she mumbles, trying to explain. “Your name sounds familiar, I think. But it’s all... in pieces.”

“Uh huh.” He points at the demon. “Remember him?”

She shivers, though she doesn’t know why. Doesn’t answer the question, just buries her face in her knees and hopes he’ll go away and stop trying to make her think. She remembers so little, understands less, and the pain in her head is unbearable when Tripitaka isn’t there holding her hands and touching her.

From where he stands, the demon makes a strained noise, an echo of the way Sandy’s head feels, like he wants to shatter.

“The monk is correct,” he mutters, with obvious reluctance. “I can sense the tumult inside her mind. It is... draining.”

Sandy flinches again. “Sorry,” she whispers, and the word tastes strange and sort of sour.

She doesn’t understand why. Shouldn’t feel pity for a demon, she’s sure, and especially not for one she’s convinced has tried to hurt her before. And yet somehow, for reasons beyond her recollection, her heart feels as guilty as if she’d inflicted some terrible suffering on him.

He waves her off, no doubt sensing that she’s in no condition to hold a conversation, and speaks instead to Tripitaka.

“Understand me,” he says, with significance. “I do not possess the strength to bring her back again. When I am replenished, perhaps, but—”

“There might be nothing left of her by then,” Tripitaka blurts out, interrupting. The blind panic in her voice makes the blood freeze in Sandy’s veins. “She’s getting _worse_.”

The demon recoils, face twisting, like he’s in the most unspeakable pain.

“I know that,” he snaps after a beat, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. “As I have said before, I can sense her thoughts. The maelstrom is maddening, even from a distance.”

“Not very enjoyable at close-range, either,” Sandy mumbles to herself, then giggles like the half-mad child she is.

The demon ignores her. There is torment in his eyes, and it bleeds through his voice as he speaks again, turning it ragged. “Believe me,” he says to Tripitaka, “I am intimately aware of the dangers in leaving her this way.”

Tripitaka looks devastated. “ Then what—”

Still crouched in front of Sandy, still studying her from all angles, Monkey’s eyes suddenly harden to diamond. “Hush, monk.”

He stands without another word, floating to his feet in a fluid, graceful motion, and immediately begins to pace the room. 

Sandy watches him, unable to move at all, measuring the tension in his shoulders and his limbs and his spine; he is too stiff, his lines very straight, and his movement is jagged and jerky. Doesn’t seem to bother him, though; it’s like the motion itself is what he need, not how fluid it is. Watching him, Sandy feels unwell; the endless back-and-forth of his pacing makes her stomach queasy and the rhythm of his boots on the floor makes her head pound. Worse and worse, until it’s utterly unbearable. She wants to cry, but she thinks — and she's mostly sure — she’s too old for that now.

Tripitaka is watching Monkey too. She doesn’t look quite as miserable as Sandy feels, but she definitely doesn’t look happy about the way he shushed her. She slinks back to Sandy’s side and sits down beside her, but there is a fierceness in her grip when she takes her hand that says she’s very displeased.

“It’s okay,” she says to Sandy, and the tightness of her voice matches the tightness of her grip. “We’ll figure it out somehow, I promise.”

Sandy shakes her head, whispers another miserable “Sorry.”

“Don’t.” And she squeezes her hand until it hurts. “Never.”

Monkey spins on his heel, glaring daggers at them both. “What part of ‘hush’ didn’t you hear?”

He turns to the demon almost before he’s finished speaking, and the tension in his shoulders seems to get even worse. Like his whole body has become a wire or a rope, pulled tight until it forms a trap or a chain or a garotte. He looks nervous, shaky; he looks nearly as frightened as Sandy feels, and though she recognises nothing and remembers still less, a part of her is sure that none of this is normal for him.

The demon, seeming to sense something the rest of them can’t, draws himself up to his full height and says, rather emphatically, “ _No_.”

Monkey bristles, then scowls. “Will you stop reading my mind?”

“If you wish your thoughts to remain private,” the demon shoots back, rather curtly, “perhaps you should not think so loudly.”

“That...” He sputters a little, then waves a hand as though to dismiss the point entirely. “Forget it. Point is, would it _work_?”

The demon is silent for a long, long moment. Sandy looks at Tripitaka, feeling dazed and disjointed; she can't think past the pain in her head, can't see beyond the vertigo and disorientation, and it is comforting beyond words to see a little bit of her confusion reflected in Tripitaka’s beautiful dark eyes. In this if nothing else, she’s not the only one feeling utterly lost.

“What’s going on?” Tripitaka asks, in a voice that says she’s not entirely sure she wants to hear the answer. “What are you talking about? Or, uh... thinking about, apparently.”

The demon growls. The sound tears straight through Sandy’s brain, taking up residence at the base of her skull. She presses her face to Tripitaka’s neck and tries in vain to breathe.

“Your Monkey King,” the demon says after a long, tense beat, “would offer some of his own power to bolster mine.”

Sandy doesn’t understand any part of that.

Tripitaka, on the other hand, most certainly does; she leaps up onto her feet like she’s been stung, like the demon just threatened to launch them all into the sun. She sways for a second, then reorients herself and rounds on Monkey like she’s never seen him before, like he’s as much a stranger to her as he is to Sandy, like he’s become something entirely new. Good or bad, Sandy can’t quite tell, but the intensity on her face is striking and makes the rest of the room grow dimmer.

“You’d do that?” she asks him, breathless and reverent. Then, less than a heartbeat later, “I mean, is that even _possible_?”

“Ask him,” Monkey says breezily; his expression tightens when he looks back to the demon, but only a little. “He’s the one who’s spent his whole life sucking the power out of gods.”

“That is _not_ what I do,” the demon mutters, annoyed. “I manipulate gods’ minds, yes. I twist their consciousness, coerce them into doing what I ask, but they do it of their own free will. Compared to what you are suggesting, my methods are wholly humane.” He says it with a curled lip, a poorly-suppressed smirk, like he really does believe that. Watching him, Sandy shudders. “Until your little friends began leeching my talents like the parasitic beasts they are, I had more than enough power of my own. I will not degrade and humiliate myself by resorting to petty theft.”

Monkey bares his teeth, eyes glinting. “But would it _work_?”

For a long moment, the demon only glares.

Then, in a burst of frustration, he throws up his hands, and snarls, “Of course it would work, you immortal imbecile.”

Monkey smirks, folding his arms across his chest, like that’s the end of that.

Sandy looks at Tripitaka, anxious and scared and desperate for an explanation. Her head feels full, like it’s trying to digest things it shouldn’t have swallowed, vision blurring, body all tangled up inside itself; she just wants someone — no, she wants _Tripitaka_ — to take her aside and quietly, gently, turn all this the madness into something that makes sense.

Apparently that’s too much to hope for, though. Tripitaka spares her only the briefest of glances, like she’s making sure she won’t die if left by herself for a moment, then focuses all her attention on the others.

“Monkey.” On her lips, the name sounds like a prayer, like something sacred and beautiful. “Why in the world would you...?”

She doesn’t finish, and he doesn’t meet her eye. Doesn’t seem able to really look at anyone. Not the monk, not the other god, not the demon he was talking to or the one unconscious in the bed. Not even Sandy, and he must know that she would be the safest one to look at, being in no condition to look back. He’s got his eyes on the ground, and though the smirk hasn’t left his face it looks a little awkward now, like he’s growing uncomfortable under Tripitaka’s scrutiny.

“Don’t say it like that,” he grumbles, tight-lipped and defensive. “It’s no big deal, okay? You’d do the same thing, if you had any power to give.”

Tripitaka glances at the demon, then turns back to Monkey. When she speaks again, her voice is so low that Sandy has to lean forward and strain to hear. 

“It’s... a lot of trust,” she says, very quietly. “From you, more than anyone else. After what he did to you last time, we’d all understand if you—”

“If I stood back and let her brains melt?” He’s scowling slightly, but without any real heat. “When I could have done something to stop it?”

Tripitaka recoils sharply, no doubt struck by his visceral choice of words. Sandy shudders a little too, but his description is so close to what she’s feeling it doesn’t have quite the same impact. She knows what’s happening to her, she’s living through it, and hearing it put into words is more of a comfort than a blow.

“You don’t have to be so...” Tripitaka swallows thickly, but doesn’t finish the sentence. “Never mind. I just mean, I know how much of a sacrifice it is for you, putting yourself back into the hands of the demon who—”

“Who tried to melt _my_ brains?” Just like that, the smirk is back, as smug as before, but there’s a vacant space behind his eyes this time that the grin can’t seem to reach. Even in her wrecked state, Sandy knows bravado when she sees it. “It’s fine, monk. Really. He’s housebroken now.”

“I assure you,” the demon interjects sharply, “I am no such thing.”

Tripitaka is still looking at Monkey, chewing her lip and wearing a quiet, worshipful expression. “You’d really do that? For her?”

“For any one of you,” Monkey says, with unexpected seriousness. He cuts a quick look at the other god, the hulking giant who hasn’t spoken since the conversation started. “Even that big lug over there, if I had to. It’s the right thing to do.”

Sandy doesn’t have enough of herself left to understand why this is significant, why it carries so much weight, but she can tell that it does. Everyone in the room is solemn and sober — even Monkey, even as he covers it with a smirk — and they’re all looking at her like she’s the source of something terrible, like she’s responsible for some dreadful shared suffering. She wants to apologise again, wants to hide and cry and tell them to just let her brains melt if that’s what it would take to quiet all their awful feelings, but her head hurts too much to even try and make the words.

While she’s wrestling with it, the pain and the guilt and the lack of comprehension, the bigger god finally speaks up. He’s standing by the bed now, hovering like a sort of sentry, like he’s trying to shield the demon lying there. He looks very very drained, like the sheer effort of standing has bled him of all his strength.

“I’ll do it,” he says in a rough, rocky sort of voice. He’s looking down at the demon in the bed, and won’t spare even a glance for anybody else. “It’s about bloody time I helped someone other than myself, isn’t it? And besides...” He tries to muster a smile, but it’s wan and it falls from his face completely when he locks eyes with Monkey. “I’m not afraid of him like you are.”

Monkey bristles. “I’m not _afraid_ of him. I just haven’t forgotten what he is or what he did.”

“Sure, sure. Potayto, potahto, right?”

It’s the wrong thing to say. The smirk on Monkey’s face sharpens to a sneer, lips pulled back in a warning.

“Big talk from the only one of us who hasn’t had his brains turned to mush by that guy.” He lets that sit for a moment, then moves on. “Besides, that’s not the point. Even if I was afraid of him — which I’m _not_ — I’m still the best candidate. She’s in pieces and you’re barely half a god. I’ve got more power in my toe than you two have in both your bodies put together.”

The other god looks like he sorely wants to argue that but realises it would be futile. He pouts a little, and gives up with a huffy, grumbled, “You don’t have to be so _mean_ about it.”

“Truth hurts,” Monkey counters with a shrug that says he doesn’t care, then he turns back to the demon like the interruption never happened. “So. Looks like I’m willing to swallow my pride for the ‘greater good’. How about you, Mr. Self-Righteous? Are _you_ afraid?”

The demon growls, nostrils flaring a threat.

For all his insistences of fearlessness, Monkey takes a hasty step back at the sight of him, ducking neatly out of reach.

“Do not push me, Monkey King,” the demon says hotly. “And especially not if you intend to put your power in my hands.”

Still keeping a safe, careful distance, Monkey bares his teeth. “Is that a ‘yes’?”

Silence, but only for a moment. They face each other briefly, shoulders squared and stoic, as though engaging in some unvoiced combative challenge, then the demon glances back at Sandy and his features crumple into a frown. Her head throbs under his gaze, and the confusion inside of her seems to get even worse, pressure bearing down on her head, her mind, on every part of her, until it’s almost too much to bear.

She bites down on a groan, gulping relief when Tripitaka slips back to her side. She touches her hand, her arm, her back, touches her everywhere her small hands can reach, until the flood of sensation quiets a little of the throbbing in Sandy’s head.

Still watching them, the demon heaves a deep, weary-sounding sigh.

“Very well, then,” he says to Monkey. “For the greater... _good_.”

And he wrinkles his nose like that’s the most revolting word he’s ever heard.

*

What comes next is a big, messy blur.

Sandy watches from a distance, too confused and in too much pain to stand, as Monkey and the demon work quietly together; a lock cut from Monkey’s hair, a few words exchanged between them, and then a blast of magic so powerful she feels it even from the other side of the room. They’re gripping each other’s faces, iron-tight but sort of tender too, and Sandy does not understand why the sight of it, possessive and intimate and overflowing with power, makes her heart flutter.

Tripitaka stays close while it happens, angling her body so she’s a little bit in front of her, trying without much success to obscure her view, like she thinks Sandy is too fragile to witness the exchange of power.

And perhaps she’s not wrong about that; Sandy’s mind seems to bend when she looks too closely, like the discordant vertigo that comes with peering too closely at her own reflection. The hum of power seems to fill the room, fill her head as well, and by the time it’s over — Monkey staggering back against the nearest wall, exhausted and in obvious discomfort — she’s doubled over, head in her hands to try and hold it all together.

She doesn’t lift her head, doesn’t have the strength to try, but she can feel the sudden tension rippling through Tripitaka’s body as Monkey lets out a low groan. She doesn’t stand, doesn’t move at all, but she’s clearly conflicted, torn between staying by Sandy’s side and rushing to Monkey’s.

Half-blind but not wanting to be a burden, Sandy manages, “You can go to him.”

“No, she can’t.”

And in a flash and a burst of light, the demon is there, standing in front of them.

Tripitaka swallows. “Is he...?”

“Well enough, for now.” His tone is inscrutable, tight with strain but betraying no hint of emotion. “He will need rest and time to regain his power. As will I, when this is finished. But for now...”

And without another word, he takes Sandy’s face in his hands, forces her head up, and peers directly into her mind.

Dimly, in some locked-off little corner of herself, Sandy knows that this is to be expected, that it’s normal, that it’s good, that they’ve done this before. But that part is out of reach right now; she can’t reach it, and the only part of herself she can touch is overflowing with a child’s terror, the faded, hazy echo of psychic pain, of her mind being split, of—

She screams.

Terrified, furious, helpless, she lashes out with every part of her, body and mind. She feels so many things, overpowering and uncontrollable, but nothing more powerfully than the all-consuming fear, the desperate and irrepressible need to break free, to get away, to _escape_ —

The demon doesn’t blink. If he feels her struggles, he shows no sign of it. His eyes fill her whole vision.

“Hold her,” he shouts, a whip-crack of a command, and Sandy is dimly aware of another pair of arms, smaller but unfathomably strong; they’re supposed to be giving her comfort, she’s almost certain, but they’re holding too tightly, keeping her in place, _restraining_ her. And she lashes out against them as well, wild and scared and—

“Sandy!” The voice she knows, but she can’t reach it either, can’t find the place inside of her that should know it. “Sandy, it’s okay, it’s okay. He’s trying to help—”

She stops, cut off as Sandy starts screaming again. Her grip tightens on her arms, hard enough to leave bruises, and panic is pouring off her in waves; Sandy can taste it, salt-sticky in her mouth. Helpless. Frightened, too, but not in the same way Sandy is. Frightened _of_ her, not frightened _for_ her. Sandy doesn’t really understand why, but it feels wrong, it feels backwards, it feels—

 _She_ feels.

“Please...” She’s sobbing, struggling to find the strength for another scream. “Please, no, please don’t, please _stop_ —”

But they don’t.

Neither of them. Not the demon peering into her eyes and invading her mind. Not the human holding her fast, holding her down, keeping her still, keeping her helpless, keeping her _trapped_ —

And her voice is warm, even as her hands are like shackles, whispering Sandy’s name over and over and over, harrowed and haunted and desperate: “It’s okay, Sandy, it’s for your own good, it’s okay...”

And Sandy’s mind unravels and unravels, splitting and fraying at the seams, an echo of a moment she doesn’t remember, her own voice screaming and sobbing, her fingers twisted into talons, clawing and scratching and scared. A warning, a memory, a—

“Lies!” Her voice is high, hoarse, horrible. Too young, too old, too everything, it doesn’t sound like her at all. “That’s what _he_ said!”

The human flinches. _Tripitaka_ , Sandy’s mind recalls, though the name has too many holes in it now to recall where it came from or how she knows it.

“What?” she’s saying, in a deathly whisper.

Something in Sandy’s head tightens like a muscle spasm, squeezing until she can’t breathe through it.

“Don’t know,” she whines. “Don’t remember.” Her eyes roll back, breaking contact with the demon still gripping her face. “Please don’t hurt me, _please_...”

Tripitaka’s breathing is ragged and raw in her ear. It’s the only sound she can really hear any more, the only point of focus she has to hold on to. Heaving, hurting, in and out and in and out and—

And her voice, all shot through with cracks: “Sandy—”

And the demon holds her face a little tighter, and even without his eyes piercing her own, still somehow she can feel his mind threading its little needle inside of her, weaving and knitting and stitching—

And she tries to scream again, to sob or speak, to make any sound at all, but she can’t, she’s frozen, she’s paralysed—

And at the back of her mind, some terrible, terrified, traumatised little voice whispers, _not again, please, not again—_

And she doesn’t understand, doesn’t know or remember anything, only that she is in pieces, only that she is scared and small and so—

 _Silent_.

*

She opens her eyes, much later, and everything is transformed.

The world around her, yes, but the world inside her as well.

She’s lying on the floor, swaddled in heavy blankets, and she—

She is _herself_.

Again.

She rolls over, breath stuttering and rattling in her chest, and touches a hand to her head. It’s still aching a bit, a dull mnemonic throb like the lingering remnants of a bad headache, but nothing like it was before. The pain will stay for a while, she suspects, but at least it feels mostly harmless.

That’s not the important part, though.

The important part is that she _knows_.

Who she is, where she is, most of what happened to her. All the things that matter, everything important, she knows.

She recognises the room, the bed pressed against the far wall, the motionless body underneath the covers. Recognises the tremors wracking her body and knows where they came from, recognises the voices murmuring all around her, hushed tones and soft secrets.

She tries to breathe, and cannot fathom how easy it is.

She tries to think, and is stunned by the absence of pain.

She sits up, slowly and with great care, and takes in her surroundings, the familiar world and the familiar people in it.

No sign of Monkey or the Shaman. Resting elsewhere, perhaps? Somewhere more peaceful. Somewhere without _her_.

Locke, still unconscious in her old bed. No motion, no sound; she’s as still as a ghost, the barely-existent rise and fall of her chest the only sign of life. Pigsy, standing stubbornly by the bedside with clouds in his eyes and a dead weight crushing his shoulders; he looks as exhausted as Sandy feels, and he doesn’t seem to see anyone or anything but Locke. If he notices or cares that Sandy is awake, he certainly doesn’t say anything.

And Tripitaka—

Tripitaka notices.

And she cares.

She’s by her side, on her knees, before Sandy has even fully realised she’s there. Like there’s nothing else in the room, nothing else in the whole wide world. Just _her_ , blinking the sleep and pain out of her eyes, slowly crawling back to herself. Like everything else stopped the moment she started again.

“Sandy!” It works in reverse, too. Tripitaka’s voice is like cool air heavy with rain, like the sound of blooming life. Refreshing, soothing, steadying; Sandy relishes it. “Are you okay? Are you—?”

“Myself.” It’s a little bit of a challenge, speaking. Her tongue is heavy, sticking to the roof of her mouth, but for once that’s the only obstacle. “I think so.”

Tripitaka makes a tiny sniffling sound, relief and sorrow at the same time. “You have to stop doing that,” she chides, and Sandy is at least mostly sure she’s not serious. “You scared the life out of me. _Again_. Sandy...”

“Yes.” She swallows. It doesn’t unstick her tongue. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t...” Another sniffle, closer to a sob. “No sorries. Never.”

Sandy nods, leans all the way in, until her face is buried in Tripitaka’s shoulder, until she’s surrounded by the familiar warmth of monk’s robes, the familiar scent of borrowed fabric and a girl who is not a monk at all. She breathes and she breathes and she breathes, and it’s only when she pulls back and finds her vision blurry with water that she realises she’s started sniffling as well.

“Monkey?” she asks, sounding as ragged as she feels. “And the, uh...” It takes a moment to recall his name, but she gets there, she remembers, she _knows_. “The Shaman?”

Tripitaka’s smile, already watery, falters a little. “They’re both fine,” she says carefully. “Resting, I hope. And recovering their strength.”

The look on her face is telling, though. A little troubled, a little nervous, and when she’s not speaking she worries her lip between her teeth as though to keep herself calm.

Sandy shrinks back a little, wrapping her arms tight around herself. “Are they hurt? Did they suffer for me?”

“No. Just exhausted, and a little moody.” Mostly truthful, but also evasive. If she was feeling a little better, Sandy might be able to pick apart the weak spots in the honesty, but she is exhausted too, and disoriented. “Monkey especially. He’s not used to being less than perfect, even for a good cause.”

Sandy shivers. She doesn’t remember very much of what happened when she wasn’t herself, but she definitely remembers Monkey. Remembers the way he straightened his spine and his shoulders, the way he smiled even as he was so afraid — even as he denied being afraid at all — and not looking at her. She remembers him trying to smirk, shaky but strong, remembers him trying so hard to pretend he wasn’t doing something special, that it wasn’t a great act of courage to surrender himself to the demon who once caused him such terrible pain.

Easier to talk himself into it, she supposes, if he could pretend it was nothing.

“Need to talk to him,” she mumbles, feverish and dizzy. “Need to thank him. What he did... Tripitaka, you know how he feels about the Shaman, you know what he did to him. I have to thank him, I have to...”

“You can thank him later.”

“But—”

She tries to stand, to bypass the argument completely, but Tripitaka lays a hand on her arm, restraining her before she can even get up onto her knees. Sandy has a hazy memory of feeling trapped, of being held in place, steel-tight fingers gripping her arms, hard and bruising, and her body flinches by instinct.

“Later,” Tripitaka says again, then frowns as Sandy wrenches out of her grip. “When you’ve both gotten the rest you need.”

Sandy scowls, but doesn’t argue. Her head is still heavy and achey, and there is a weight in her chest that makes it hard to breathe evenly. Nothing like the mnemonic pain of a chill that wouldn’t die, of water in her lungs and coughing herself ill, this feels much more present, much more _real_. Pressure behind her ribs, like they’ve been bruised. Difficulty breathing, like she’s razed her throat with too much screaming, the way she does when things come to her in sleep. Feels like her body has over-exerted itself, like she’s been struggling, fighting for her life, like she’s been—

Like she’s—

She frowns.

“Something happened again.” It’s not a question; the harder she focuses on her body instead of her mind, the more she can feel that it’s true. Her body feels bruised, wracked with the tell-tale aches and pains of a real struggle, a physical one, and it keeps trying to flinch when Tripitaka tries to touch her. “Did I do something again? Did I...”

“No.” Too fast, almost embarrassingly so. It’s comical, Sandy thinks with some bitterness, that even now, even after all her exposed falsehoods, Tripitaka still believes herself a talented liar. “You were just confused. You didn’t recognise the Shaman, and I don’t think you realised he was trying to help you.”

Sandy sighs, fills in the blanks herself. “I tried to hurt him. And you stopped me.”

“No.” Fiercely emphatic. “Nothing like that, Sandy, I promise. You were just scared.”

“I hurt people when I’m scared,” Sandy whispers, low and confessional and deeply afraid of herself. “You’ve seen it happen, Tripitaka.”

“Yeah, I have. But that’s not what happened this time.” She looks her in the eye for a long, quiet moment, with such passion and earnestness that Sandy’s heart stalls in her chest. It’s very difficult not to believe her when she looks like that. “Sandy, I swear it. You didn’t do anything to anyone. You were just trying to get away.”

Sandy sighs. She’s not sure she believes it — her body certainly doesn’t — but what else can she do? She doesn’t remember what the Shaman did to her, only waking up and feeling like herself again; when she tries to think beyond that point, her head cracks a warning so violent that it startles her into giving up. She is completely at Tripitaka’s mercy, bound to her honesty or deception, and even if she were certain it was a lie, there is nothing she could do to prove it.

It is a nightmare of a thing, being so thoroughly dependent on someone else to tell her who she is and what she did. To be bound to anyone in such a manner, yes, but to Tripitaka especially.

She sighs, surrendering to the fact that she can’t argue. “I hate this.”

“I know,” Tripitaka says. “But you’re back now. You’re yourself—”

“For how long?” The sharpness surprises her as much as Tripitaka; she tries to soften a little, for both their sakes, and only partly succeeds. “I thought I was doing better. Putting some of the pieces back together. I remembered more, I understood more. Felt more like myself, like what I was supposed to be. Not whole, not healthy or normal, but...” She wets her lips, struggles to find the right words. “Don’t know. Solid, maybe? Or like I could be that way, one day. Like maybe it was somewhere in sight, you know? But now this, and I’m in pieces all over again.”

Her voice cracks as she speaks, and she hates that as well. Weakness and brokenness in every part of her, and there is nothing she can do but hold on tight and cling to Tripitaka’s faith that it will get better.

Less and less convincing every time she says it.

But still, because she is human and her faith defines her, she tries again. Takes Sandy’s hands, both of them, with such gentleness, such warmth that Sandy’s body almost forgets its instinct to flinch. Holds lightly enough that she can pull away if she wants, tightly enough that she knows she is protected, that she is safe and sheltered and not alone. Holds until Sandy stops trembling, until she can look up and meet her eye and listen when she speaks.

“It wasn’t your fault, what happened.” Her words are as gentle as her touches, and like her touches they make some strange hidden part of Sandy want to recoil. “It was an accident. The Shaman was out of his depth, using a demon, and so were we.”

“And Locke nearly died,” Sandy reminds her. “And I was broken again. And—”

“Sandy, stop that.” Sharper now, not nearly so gentle, and with an edge keen enough to cut. “Stop calling yourself _broken_.”

“Why?” She is entirely too drained for this conversation, but the anguished, urgent look on Tripitaka’s face — now, and every other time she hears that word — makes her feel haunted and vulnerable, makes her want to look deeper. “Why does it upset you so terribly?”

“Because you’re not.” She swallows, looking upset. “Because you—”

“No.” Sandy shuts her eyes, breathes, and understands. “Because _you_.”

She tries to turn her face away, but it is so much harder than it should be. Her reflexes are crying, her heart aching to surround itself with Tripitaka’s warmth even as her body still flinches at every touch; the conflicting sensations make her shake and twitch, but her heart has always been so much louder than her body. She wants to drown in her strength and softness, her arms and her robes and her scent. Wants it so badly it hurts, but she knows that if she lets herself fall a little, she’ll fall completely.

And she cannot let that happen. Not now. Not again.

Tripitaka is staring at her, looking wounded. “Sandy?”

“ _You_ ,” she says again, thicker, forcing herself to focus on what matters. “You don’t want to hear it. That’s why you get upset. Not because you actually believe I’m not broken, but because you don’t want to admit that I am. Don’t want to accept it. Don’t want to have to think about what it might mean. Because you...”

She’s blinking rapidly, fighting tears. In the moment it takes her to catch her breath, Tripitaka is catching her eye, whispering, “That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. You see me a particular way. You see me as something that is good, something that is thriving, something that... something whole and healthy. And you don’t want to be forced to open your eyes and see that it might not be true. That I might never be—”

Stops. The cut is too sharp, too clean and quick to let her finish.

Tripitaka is quiet for a while. Sandy wishes she could stop looking at her, wishes she could hide from the anguish, the grief on her face, but she can’t. Not this time.

At long last, with obvious effort Tripitaka sighs and says, “Sandy.”

A little too low, a little too careful, but even now the sound of her own name brings a little comfort. Sandy shakes her head, shakes all over.

“Tripitaka. You can’t—”

“I can.” Her voice hitches, ragged determination shot through with doubt, with fear, with everything she has tried so hard to deny. “Because you _will_ get better. Okay? You _will_.”

“You can’t know that.” Just saying it makes her tremble right down to her bones. Makes Tripitaka tremble a bit too, if her sudden pallour is any measure. “It frightens you, doesn’t it? To think that you might be wrong, that things might not happen the way you want them to.” She lets that sit, but only for a second, watches the grief and fear darken Tripitaka’s eyes. “The Shaman might not be able to fix me. You’re beginning to understand that now, I hope. And if he can’t, if all this is for nothing... I might be like this for the rest of my life. Holes in my head. Holes in my behaviour. Vanishing into my memories, forgetting who and where I am, assaulting my friends. Hurting them. Maybe even hurting you.”

“That won’t happen,” Tripitaka says, harder. “It won’t. You—”

“You’re lying to yourself, and to me. You want so badly to believe it, so you say it over and over again until you can’t fathom anything else. You want it to be true, so you make it true, even when it’s not. Just like...”

_Just like you did at the North Water. When you were ready to abandon us and the quest and everything you’d ever stood for, because you wanted so badly to believe in something that was not true. Because you were too afraid to face a truth that might be cruel._

Though she doesn’t say it, Tripitaka still hears.

“It’s nothing like that,” she whispers, looking and sounding betrayed, exactly like she did back then. “How can you even think that?”

Sandy doesn’t answer. Instead, she looks away and says, very quietly, “You tell me, again and again, that I’m not broken, that the Shaman will fix me, that I will be whole again. This, you say as if it were a fundamental truth. But it’s not, Tripitaka, and you refuse to talk about what you will do with me if it doesn’t happen. If it can’t happen. If the Shaman is not powerful enough, or if there is nothing to be done, or if I...” She swallows hard. “If _broken_ is all I can be.”

“I...” Tripitaka is looking at her like she barely recognises her, heartbroken and disappointed all at once. “I didn’t think it needed to be said.”

“It does.” Quiet, perhaps a little ashamed, but she can’t seem to silence the miserable little creature inside her, the wretched thing that has spent its life alone and lonely. “I was abandoned, Tripitaka, for hearing _voices_. I was discarded, thrown away, called a demon, all for the madness inside my head. And that was before I ever hurt anyone, before I ever raised my hand against my friends. Before I...”

 _Before I deserved it_ , she doesn’t say. Can’t say it, or she’ll start crying again. And she couldn’t bear any more of that.

Tripitaka is staring at her, looking very much like she wants to start crying as well. She doesn’t either, of course. Only says Sandy’s name again, soft and low, and, “Oh.”

Sandy’s body flinches again, tensing and locking up as Tripitaka reaches for her, and then immediately feels lost and empty when she retreats. Muscle memory, she guesses, but whatever it is her body remembers, the rest of her still does not.

“So, yes,” she goes on, swallowing the feeling together with the threat of tears, “it does need to be said. What you’ll do with me if this... if my condition is permanent. If my mind cannot be salvaged, if _I_ cannot be salvaged. If I am doomed to be like this for the rest of my life, and you have no choice but to accept that I am broken, really and truly... I need to hear it said, whether I will also be alone.”

Tripitaka makes an anguished sound, almost an answer in itself.

“No,” she rasps, sounding a little broken herself. “No, of course you won’t be alone. Whatever happens to your mind or your body, or any other part of you, you’ll never be alone again. Do you understand? Never, ever again.”

Sandy does understand, but it’s terribly difficult to believe. She wonders, feeling dissociated, if Tripitaka understands, if she truly grasps what she’s saying, the impossible thing she’s promising. She, who insists again and again that there is only one possible outcome, who is so utterly convinced she knows how this nightmare will end, who ignores or avoids any chance of things not turning out the way she wants. Does she really, truly fathom what she’s offering, what she’s saying?

“I may never be what you want me to be,” Sandy says. “Whole or healthy or thriving. I may lose control, I may hurt people. I may be dangerous, I may be unstable, I may be—”

“Maybe,” Tripitaka says, ever so softly. “But you won’t be alone.”

And she reaches for her, arms open and warm, and—

And Sandy’s body reacts, again, to a moment she doesn’t remember.

Her muscle seize, freeze, locking up and holding her suspended in an instinct. To scream, to struggle, to resist with all of her strength. She hugs herself, feels the bruises in her arms.

“You held me down,” she guesses, trying to hold her body still. “When the Shaman was fixing me. Something happened, and you held me down.”

“I _held_ you.” Her eyes burn, warmth and a passion so fierce that Sandy burns a little too. “That’s all. You didn’t lose control. You didn’t do anything. You were scared, Sandy, so I held you.”

And she reaches out, just as she did before, to hold her again.

But this time, Sandy’s body yields and falls open, and she does not flinch at all.

*

 


	17. Chapter 17

*

She doesn’t get a chance to speak to Monkey about it.

Not in private, just the two of them, the moment of gratitude and respect she owes him instead, all she has to offer is a stolen moment in a too-full room, half-words snatched and scrambled between bites of whatever Monica has brought for the evening meal.

It’s not what she wants, not what he deserves, but it’s the only time they get to talk about it before nightfall. Tripitaka has glued herself to Sandy’s side and the Shaman seems quite determined to stay close to Monkey’s too, so there is little opportunity for the two of them to sit down together and talk.

Possibly that’s for the best; communication isn’t Sandy’s strong point, even when her mind is more or less in one piece, and this runs far deeper than a standard thank-you. Knowing as she does — as they all do — what the Shaman put Monkey through the last time he was helpless in his hands, Sandy can barely even begin to imagine the depth of trust and courage he must have summoned just to make the offer. To actually go through with it, to lay bare himself and his powers to the same demon who so abused them last time... she doesn’t think any of them can truly understand what that must have cost him.

She wants to tell him that, or at least a part of it, but she is so clumsy with words she wouldn’t know where to begin. Besides, he seems almost as uncomfortable, for once, as she is.

“Don’t mention it,” he mutters when she makes a clumsy start. Then, when she frowns and tries again, “ _Seriously_. Don’t _mention_ it.”

Sandy may know very little about social interaction, but even she can tell when someone doesn’t want to talk about something.

So they don’t. Let the crowded room and the meal stand as a buffer between them, an excuse to keep their mouths shut and their eyes elsewhere. 

They’re not the only ones avoiding awkward conversation. Everyone is quiet and subdued; even Pigsy — usually the first to crack under the pressure of too much silence, the first to blurt out whatever he’s thinking just to banish it — keeps his thoughts on the inside. He eats little, says even less, and excuses himself halfway through the meal without so much as a word. Back to Locke’s bedside, most likely; he’s barely left it since they arrived, and when he does it’s with great reluctance.

Even for food, it seems. It is startlingly unlike him. It makes Sandy feel—

She doesn’t know.

She feels a lot. So much she doesn’t know what to do with it all. About him, about Locke, about the whole unpleasant situation.

Guilty, first of all. Difficult not to feel that way when she’s the reason Locke’s unconscious in the first place, the reason she may well have died. She is responsible, she and her stupid condition, for all the pain and suffering her companions have endured, friend and foe alike, and she feels that with a dagger’s keennes.

But at the same time, through the guilt and shame, there are darker feelings, ones she doesn’t want to admit to. Anger, vengefulness. Little flickers of memory, smoke-light and barely-there, but memory nonetheless, and the pain and horror they bring with them. The things she knows they did, Locke and Pigsy both, and the things she hasn’t yet learned about. Is she supposed to feel pity for a half-dead demon, knowing what that demon was willing to do to a child just because it had god’s blood? 

Maybe not. Almost certainly not.

But still, somehow, a part of her does.

It is tangled and wild, the inside of her head. And now that she’s herself again it doesn’t know what to feel or think, only knows that everything is terribly, terribly difficult.

She massages her temples. Her head is throbbing a bit, a headache that — for once — is just a headache. Exhaustion, confusion, a side-effect of feeling too much too strongly and for too long. Normal, or as close to it as she can hope to be right now; a strange, masochistic part of her relishes the simple, unmessy misery.

Eyes on her. She can feel them, even without looking up: Tripitaka, tight and worried, and the Shaman, cool and careless. He’d know if something was really wrong, she supposes, but Tripitaka has to depend on one of them to tell her; she lifts her head and manages a watery smile. Reassurance, as much of it as she has to give.

“I’m well,” she says softly. Then, to the Shaman, as if to underline the point, “When can we continue?”

“When we have all had a good night’s sleep,” he replies, in that voice she knows and hates, the one that allows no argument, no discussion. “I am still drained, and you can barely keep your eyes open. To say nothing of your little friend...”

Sandy glances back at Tripitaka, noticing for the first time the deep-etched lines on her face. They make her look so much older than she is, and so, so weary. The sight of her like that, so exhausted for her sake, sends another twinge of guilt through Sandy’s body.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “Didn’t mean to drag you down with me.”

Tripitaka musters a chuckle. It’s wan and shaky like her smile, but still carries her usual warmth.

“I don’t think he’s talking about me,” she says.

Sandy furrows her brow, turns to Monkey. “If you need—”

“Not me, you doofus.” He rolls his eyes. “The other one.”

“The one you do need,” the Shaman reminds her, shaking his head.

“Pigsy,” Tripitaka offers helpfully, when Sandy still looks blank. “I don’t think he’s gotten much sleep since this thing started. Even before Locke got hurt. He must be running completely dry by now.”

True enough. Sandy’s stomach lurches a little, still uncertain of how to feel about that. “He knew longer than any of us,” she says, voice tight, “what I’d be going through.”

“Yeah.” Tripitaka leans in a little, brushing Sandy’s sleeve with the backs of her fingers. It’s barely a touch at all, but it sets fire to the skin underneath and makes Sandy feel exposed. “He’s been carrying a lot. For a long time.”

Sandy wets her lips. “Carrying a lot of guilt. A lot of shame. A lot...” She jerks up to her feet, suddenly unable to keep still, and starts to pace the room. “A lot of _dishonesty_.”

Tripitaka is wise enough to stay seated, to watch without trying to invade her personal space. Perhaps she’s hoping Sandy will exhaust herself so completely that she won’t resist sleep when they retire; perhaps she’s simply learned to recognise the moments when she needs distance and isolation, to reconnect with the part of herself that was alone for so much of its life, that only really knows how to process things when she’s on her own.

“Tomorrow,” Tripitaka says, soft but sober, once Sandy has circled the room a couple of times and settled down again. “Tomorrow, when we’re all rested—”

“When _he_ is rested,” the Shaman interjects, with pointed emphasis.

Tripitaka nods, not taking her eyes off Sandy. “Tomorrow,” she continues. “When he’s rested, when you’re ready...”

She doesn’t finish, but she doesn’t need to. Sandy nods her understanding, feeling suddenly uncomfortable and deeply afraid. It feels so immediate, put that way, the moment so close she can almost reach out and touch it. Her body can’t figure out whether it wants to throw herself at it, to end the waiting at last and be free, or turn around and run away, as far and as fast as she can.

“Tomorrow,” she says, and the word tightens around her neck like a noose.

*

But first, night. And with it, sleep. And—

And for the first time, Sandy isn’t the only one resisting.

It is more of a comfort than she’ll ever admit.

Pigsy is hesitant to leave Locke’s side for any reason, and his own well-being least of all. Sandy has never seen him resist a good night’s sleep before, and it’s more than a little unsettling; she suspects there’s an element of self-flagellation colouring his choices, a hunger to punish himself added to his concerns about his ex-lover. He isn’t quite as dogged about it as Sandy is, being more accustomed to comfort in general, but he’s stubborn enough that nothing short of the Shaman’s icy glare and cutthroat honesty will drag him away from the bed.

“Do you wish to join her?” the Shaman demands, cocking his head towards Locke’s unconscious form. “Because if we attempt to channel your memories while you are too exhausted to function, that is precisely what will happen.”

Pigsy blanches a little, but still hesitates. “She shouldn’t be alone,” he says, mostly to himself. “Even if she deserves it. What if she wakes up?”

“Then I will have done my job properly.”

His coldness makes Sandy chuckle, but it has the opposite effect on Pigsy; usually the first to appreciate dry humour, the tension in him is devastating.

“She’ll be alone,” he counters hotly. “No-one should have to wake up from something like that alone. Not even her, even after everything she’s done.”

Sandy doesn’t like the flicker of empathy that sparks inside her at that. Also doesn’t like the way she doesn’t swallow it down.

“He’s not wrong,” she murmurs, not to anyone in particular. “I can’t imagine having to wake from any of this if I didn’t have...”

Trails off, flushing a little, as Tripitaka squeezes her hand.

Annoyed, but not without a measure of compassion, Monkey interrupts the moment by muttering, “If it means that much to you idiots, I’ll stay with her.”

They all look at him, Tripitaka and Pigsy with raised eyebrows and Sandy with a subtle smile. She is not as surprised as they seem to be; she recalls too well his frustration at being kept constantly on the outside of all this, unable to help. She recalls, with a small pang, the way he spoke about the Shaman shortly after this began, his impotent rage at being forced to watch a demon help and support his friend in ways that he could not.

He is one of the proudest people she has ever met, god or otherwise, and there are few things in the world he hates more than feeling useless. He would sooner throw himself into rough waters, knowing he will drown, than admit he might not be able to swim.

Pigsy, not being privy to any of that, merely looks perplexed. “You... uh, you sure?”

Monkey rolls his shoulders, a lazy sort of half-shrug. “Gotta make myself useful somehow,” he grunts.

Thankful and oblivious, Pigsy only murmurs his thanks. Tripitaka, just as thankful and only slightly less oblivious, pats Monkey’s arm and smiles. Sandy—

Sandy doesn’t touch him or look at him. But she says, as quietly as she can while still being at least partially audible, “You _are_ useful, Monkey.”

“Sure.” He clears his throat, a little embarrassed. “Whatever.”

She watches, subtle and pretending not to be, as his face goes blank, as he shuts off all the troublesome emotions he doesn’t want to acknowledge in front of other people. They’ll have to talk about it eventually, if only so he can see how valuable he truly is, how much he’s done for her without even realising he did anything at all. Sandy owes him more than she can say, and it frustrates her that he doesn’t see it, that he truly believes his support counts for nothing just because it’s quieter than usual.

Later, though. She knows his stubbornness and pride well enough to know that he wouldn’t want any of that said in a room full of people. Especially when some of them are still his enemies.

So, instead of telling him what she feels, what she sees, she moves in close when the others disperse and says, so low that even the Shaman would have trouble hearing, “You should rest too.”

“I can sleep later,” he says, in a voice she knows too well. “I slept a bunch already, after the demon idiot sucked me dry. I’m good for a while now.”

Sandy, intimately acquainted with the desire to remain awake and alert, to hold on to that little piece of control when everything else is crumbling, nods and lets the matter drop. She gives his arm a light tap, mimicking as best she can the way Tripitaka did it — albeit with her usual awkwardness — then promptly turns away and leaves him alone.

Back to Tripitaka’s side, to face her own unwillingness to sleep.

“No,” the Shaman says, without hesitation, when she looks at him with big hopeful eyes. “I am too exhausted to keep you in a trance all night simply to assuage your petty fears.”

“But—”

“Do not make me repeat myself.” He thins his lips, deadly serious. “I have done more than enough for you today. Take responsibility for your own recuperation, for once.”

Hard to tell for sure, whether or not he means it as coldly as it sounds. Quite probably; he’s never shied away from hurting her feelings before and she doubts he’d start now. In any case, his point is fair, even if it’s harsh, and she won’t insult his generosity by denying it or trying to argue.

Tripitaka, already reaching for her hand, says, “Do you want to sleep outside again? You slept better there.”

“Did I?” Sandy asks, trying unsuccessfully to be sarcastic. “I’m certain I recall waking at least once on my knees. And you—”

Stops, swallowing hard. She doesn’t know if Tripitaka remembers her dreams, or if she would welcome the reminder if she does, but in any event this is not the time nor the place for that discussion.

Tripitaka is blinking owlishly at her. “I what?”

“You... don’t enjoy the cold,” she finishes clumsily. “And neither does my chest. Had chills ever since we came out of Locke’s mind. Can’t get warm. And, I don’t want...” Swallows hard, stopping herself before she can drift too far into herself. “Just somewhere quiet, please. Somewhere just me and you.”

She keeps her head down as she says it, more than a little ashamed. She cares deeply for Monkey and Pigsy, as strange as the idea of caring still is sometimes, but she wants to be alone, wants space to breathe and think and not have to _remember_ while surrounded by people who will never understand. She wants—

She wants many things, not least to drown, private and isolated, in the warmth of Tripitaka’s eyes.

If she hears any of that, though, Tripitaka keeps it to herself. She smiles, a sweet, secretive sort of smile, like the rest of the room has disappeared, then squeezes Sandy’s hand, and says, “We can do that.”

And so they do.

Find a quiet corner of the palace, a little room gathering dust with no bed and only a small window to speak of, no good for anything at all but perfect for this. Tripitaka wrinkles her nose a little, but keeps her distaste mostly to herself as Sandy lays down their blankets.

“Here,” she says, soft but firm.

Tripitaka takes in the state of the room, the unswept floors and dank walls, the tiny window that lets in no air, and sighs. “The things we do,” she laments, “for the people we...”

But whatever she was going to say dies spluttering in her throat as she inhales some dust and starts coughing.

And then they settle, together, swaddled in blankets—

And then, sleep.

Which, as ever, comes hard and with some suffering.

It’s different this time, though.

No loss of control, no waking up disoriented and confused or on her hands and knees, no screams strangled in her throat. None of the usual things she’s come to expect from sleep.

Perhaps she has Monkey to thank for that as well, his power added to the Shaman’s, the two of them mending her mind together. She’s felt slightly more like herself since it happened, her thoughts somewhat clearer, a fraction more coherent. The physical symptoms — the ache in her head, the chill in her bones — haven’t gone completely, but they feel a little more manageable than they have in a while. And when she drifts and falls into the murky waters of sleep, struggling all the time, the nightmares that stalk her are just nightmares.

Terrible, yes. Awful.

Haunting and harrowing and horrible.

But just nightmares.

Normal, simple nightmares. And when she wakes, she remembers them for what they were.

She dreams she’s drowning. Suffocating, pinned down, all the water pulled out of her lungs until there’s nothing left, until she can’t breathe, can’t even try, can only choke on dust and dry air.

She dreams she’s not alone. She dreams of Pigsy standing over her with a sad, serious look on his face, shaking his head and saying in a hushed voice, “It’s for your own good, you know...”

She dreams that Tripitaka is there as well, watching them from a distance with hollow, vacant eyes. They shine in the dark like dead stars, and she says, in a voice like smoke, “You’ll feel better, if you survive.”

She dreams she’s holding up her hand, blue mist flickering like fire in her palm, trying to summon her power, to call the water to her, but it has abandoned her too. The one thing she could always count on, the only thing in the world that had saved her and stayed with her and sustained her, but it has vanished completely, _gone_ , and she’s alone but not alone, her friends around her but not her friends, her body small but so heavy she can’t lift herself out of the dirt; it shimmers and ripples and swirls, struggling to become water, but it can’t, she _can’t_ —

And she wakes, gasping and choking, with dust in her throat.

Not on her knees or her back. Not heaving or screaming or dying, not confused or lost or terrified. Coughing, choking, but not sick and not scared. No madness, no disorientation, no holes in her memory. She knows where she is, and she knows how she got here. She knows why she can’t breathe, knows that it has nothing to do with what’s happening to her mind and everything to do with sleeping in a dust-clogged cupboard.

Tripitaka, wide-awake, is staring up at her. Eyes still shining, still as beautiful as stars, but there’s no emptiness in them now. They are trembling and beautiful and _real_.

She waits for Sandy to catch her breath. Careful not to touch her; she’s probably learned that lesson many times by now, and keeps her body close and open but not invasive. An invitation, if Sandy wants it, and a promise of retreat if she doesn’t. She whispers her name, over and over, like a fearful little prayer.

Sandy takes a moment to steady herself. Catching her breath is a challenge, but less of one this time because it’s the only thing she does need to catch.

“Nightmare,” she explains, when she can speak without coughing. “Normal one. Not like...” She exhales shakily. “It was normal.”

Tripitaka chuckles; she looks shaky too, but also desperately relieved. “What passes as ‘normal’ for us these days?” she asks wryly, then sobers and squeezes Sandy’s shoulder. Apparently it’s all right to touch her now, even without an invitation, so long as Sandy is herself. “Was it bad?”

“No.”

Says it with difficulty, still struggling to breathe, to remember that her lungs can take in air as well as water, that she can breathe when she’s not swimming, that she can _survive_ even without—

Shakes her head. Swallows. Then, almost imperceptibly, she nods.

Tripitaka’s shoulders slump a little, but she doesn’t press for details. “It’s to be expected,” she says. “What with everything you’re going through, I’d be more surprised if you didn’t have nightmares.”

“At least I can remember this one,” Sandy says, blinking back a sudden sting behind her eyes. “And I was myself when I woke up, and I’m still myself, and I feel...” 

“Normal?”

They both laugh, a sound as hollow as the dream-Tripitaka’s eyes.

“Whatever passes for it,” Sandy says. “As you said.”

“Little victories,” Tripitaka says, very softly. “One step at a time.”

She stands, slowly and stiffly and with the sort of low groan that comes with aching joints; after sleeping in such cramped quarters, Sandy supposes it’s not surprising. She watches as Tripitaka crosses the little room, moving to stand in front of the little window. It’s a tiny little thing, nothing like the giant balcony in Locke’s master bedroom; still, though, it seems to be enough for Tripitaka, even if she does have to stand up on her toes to be able to peer out.

Sandy stays where she is, huddled on the floor in her blankets. She pulls them a little more tightly around her shoulders to chase away the lingering chill. The coughing has stopped now that she can breathe again, and the pains in her chest have faded as well. Slowly, devastatingly slowly, it seems that her body is remembering it’s healthy. She wonders if she has Monkey’s shared power to thank for that or if it was simply inevitable.

Watching Tripitaka watch the world outside, she shakes off the last revenants of grogginess and asks, “Did we make it to morning?”

Tripitaka hops from one foot to the other, squinting through the grubby window to the hazy world beyond. “Nearly,” she says. “A couple of hours, maybe?” She breaks into a tired but genuine smile. “I think that might be the longest you’ve slept uninterrupted since this started. Without being in a trance, anyway.”

“Mm.” Sandy wets her parched lips, swallows the urge to clear her throat for the hundredth time. “Monkey’s power, maybe? More than the Shaman’s. Did a better job together than he ever could by himself. Not that he’d care to hear that, I expect.”

Tripitaka keeps her eyes on the horizon, out the window, evasive the way she gets sometimes when she’s thinking of saying something she knows Sandy won’t respond well to.

“Maybe,” she says slowly. “Or maybe you’re just getting better? You’re strong, Sandy, with or without the Shaman’s power to put you back together. With or without Monkey’s, even. And your mind... maybe it’s finally figured out how to take care of itself.”

Sandy thinks on that, then shakes her head. “Just a few hours ago, I was completely lost,” she reminds her. “Shattered, everything all broken into pieces. I didn’t know anyone or anything, least of all myself. What Monkey did... the only reason he had to do it was because of how spectacularly my mind failed to take care of itself.”

Tripitaka chuckles. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” Sandy says. “But refusing to accept something true doesn’t make it less so.”

The amusement fades, blinking out of existence like it was never there. Tripitaka still isn’t looking at her, she notices, and wonders which one of them she’s trying to protect by avoiding the eye-contact. It doesn’t seem to offer much comfort to either of them.

“Okay,” Tripitaka says eventually. “So you didn’t react particularly well to our last attempt. But neither did Locke. And she’s still br—” Stumbles. Coughs, uneasy and uncomfortable. “She’s still unconscious. And no-one would ever dare suggest that _she’s_ not strong.”

Sandy grimaces. It’s a dozen little reminders all at once, and she doesn’t appreciate any of them. She pulls the blankets a little more tightly around her, like she can protect herself from the unpleasantness if she can just keep her body warm and sheltered from the dust and the dry air. Like she’s ever been able to protect herself that way.

“She was good to me,” she says quietly. “When we were journeying here from the Jade Mountain. When my mind kept making me sick and you let her fix my hair. She was patient, conversational. We talked rather a lot, and I remember wondering if there might be something good inside her after all.”

Tripitaka makes a surprised noise, but smothers it quickly. Sandy doesn’t need to be able to read her thoughts to know she doesn’t agree, but she keeps that to herself.

“I see,” she says instead, keeping her tone neutral.

Sandy bows her head, grateful for the tact. “But my memories are starting to come back now, some of them, and I remember when she wasn’t good at all. No patience, no compassion, nothing. She was cold and angry, so full of spite and venom, and I think...”

She stops, shaking her head. Shaking on the inside as well. Doesn’t want to admit out loud what her terrified younger self knows to be true: that if it wasn’t for Pigsy, Locke would have probably broken her body as well as her mind, whatever it took to keep her quiet and unable to struggle. And she wouldn’t have even thought of it as violence, wouldn’t have seen her as a _person_...

It sickens her. Sickens her more because, for all that, she still can’t bring herself to see the monster she knows is there.

Tripitaka, still gazing out of the window, winces and says, “Yeah.”

“She doesn’t want to change,” Sandy says, to both of them. “I talked to her about that. She likes what she is, what she does. Likes being cruel, likes manipulating people and hurting people just to further her own wealth. I don’t know if she even feels any regret for what she did. To me, to any of the others she captured over the years, to anyone at all. Don’t know if she’s capable of it. I know all this, I do. But still, I...”

Stops again, sighing. A tinge of frustration in her now, her usual inability to express herself adequately, to put her complicated, messy feelings into words. 

Doesn’t matter this time, though; Tripitaka, who never needs to hear more than half a sentence to understand everything, finally turns to look at her. She’s wearing a sad smile now, sort of soft at the edges and unspeakably beautiful.

“Yeah,” she says again, gentle now. “You want to believe she’s capable of more. For her and for Pigsy, possibly for yourself a little bit too. And I know you’re not... that is, I know you don’t like the idea of believing in things that probably aren’t true. But sometimes...”

“Yes.” She swallows a couple of times; her eyes are stinging again and her throat is clogged; she wishes she could blame the dust and dry air, but she knows she can’t. not this time. “Sometimes, I think, you need to.”

Tripitaka crosses back to her side. Sits back down beside her, eyes bright with warmth and affection. Presses a kiss to her forehead, and then another to her temple.

“So believe in her,” she whispers. “And let me believe in you.”

*

Sandy doesn’t eat breakfast.

They spend a little while in the tavern, just the two of them and Monica, and while Tripitaka chews her way through half a loaf of bread Sandy makes a point of keeping her stomach empty. She gets a sharp look from Monica every now and then, but Tripitaka at least has the good sense not to say anything about it.

Perhaps she can tell just how impossible the task would be this morning; perhaps she just doesn’t want to start the day with an argument. Whatever her reason, good or bad, Sandy is grateful. She’s not had the best luck calming her insides over the last few days, and it’s even worse than normal today. She can feel her past bearing down on her, settling queasily in the pit of her stomach, her most traumatic moments almost within touching distance, close enough that she can feel its breath, its sharp teeth, can hear the keen edge of voices inside her head—

She clamps a hand over her mouth, squeezes her eyes shut.

“Rough night?” Monica asks, well-heeled worry in her voice.

“Rough morning,” Tripitaka corrects, rubbing tight circles across Sandy’s back. “Soon, anyway. We’re going into Pigsy’s head, and it’s... we’re all a bit on edge.”

“Ah.” Sandy opens her eyes to find Monica’s face creased with discomfort and sympathy. “Can’t say I envy you that.”

She turns on her heels, then, and shuffles back to the kitchen like that’s the end of the conversation. Sandy is thankful for that as well; she appreciates Monica’s stern compassion, but she’s not sure she could endure any more of it right now.

Left in peace, Tripitaka finishes the last of her bread one-handed, keeping the other pressed to the small of Sandy’s back. Settling her stomach, soothing her mind and slowing her thundering pulse; she does so many impossible things with her touches, Sandy almost can’t bear it.

“It’ll be okay,” Tripitaka tells her.

No doubt untruthful, but Sandy nods just the same. “Must be,” she muses, trying to convince herself. “I lived through it once, didn’t I?”

“You did. And this time you’re not alone. You have me. And Monkey. And...” She swallows suddenly, like the bread is stuck in her throat, then starts again, a little hesitant, a little uneasy, like she knows it’s going to hurt. “And the person Pigsy’s become. If you want him.”

Sandy’s jaw clenches. She tries to relax, but it’s not easy.

“Not much of a person,” she mutters, then softens. “But he tries.”

“He does,” Tripitaka agrees. “And he’s on your side this time. He cares, and he’s trying and... for him, you know, it takes courage.”

“Good. Because he’s the reason—” Her stomach churns, growing ever sourer, and she closes her eyes again. “Can we not talk about this, please?”

“Okay.” She flattens her palm, letting it move in harmony with her own breath; without thinking, Sandy’s lungs catch the rhythm. “All right. We don’t have to talk about anything if you don’t want to.”

So they don’t. And for a short time, it’s quiet and sort-of peaceful, and that’s about as much as Sandy can reasonably hope for.

But then it’s over, breakfast and the quiet moment and all the little ways she’s been trying to avoid thinking about what’s coming. And Tripitaka lets her hand slide down from her back, lets it fall to take Sandy’s hand instead and squeeze it tightly, but there is no comfort in the contact this time, nothing but dread and discomfort and the lingering press of nausea.

“I don’t...” Sandy swallows hard. “I’m...”

“I know,” Tripitaka says gently. “Me too.”

It helps. Only a little — a _very_ little — but it does. Sandy nods, wrapping the words and their meaning around herself, lets them protect her against the looming darkness.

She’s not alone.

Not even in this, in being paralysed with fear.

Not alone. Not now. Not ever again.

She swallows one last time, nods, and stands.

*

And then they’re back in the palace, readying to begin.

Pigsy doesn’t look like he’s gotten any more sleep than the last time they saw him. Sandy, being rather familiar with the sullen need to avoid sleep, isn’t particularly surprised. The irritable look on the Shaman’s face, however, does not make her feel especially safe, and neither does his under-the-breath grumbling about gods and their stubbornness.

“It’ll be fine,” Pigsy insists, voice cracking ever so slightly under the strain of his false bravado. “This ol’ brain is tougher than it looks.”

Monkey, still dutifully standing guard by Locke’s bed, huffs. “It’d have to be.”

Tripitaka elbows him in the ribs, hissing a warning. Sandy, with her heart in her boots and her belly in her mouth, wants to hug him for trying to break the tension.

Doesn’t, of course. He’d never forgive her if she did that in public.

Instead she retreats. Inches her way back and back, as far as she can get from the rest of them, until her shoulders are pressed against the wall. She’s not quite within touching distance of the door, but close enough that with a little help from her powers she could be through it in a couple of steps. She watches as the others start their preparations: the Shaman slowing his breathing, eyes closed and fingers steepled; Pigsy, pale but determined, finding a semi-comfortable spot on the floor and settling himself down.

Sandy takes a deep, shuddering breath, and follows his lead. Lies down with her back touching the wall, wraps her arms around herself, and lets the cold fear seep into her bones.

Tripitaka lies down next to her, without a word. Careful, respectful, she makes a point of settling herself down on the opposite side to the door, like she understands Sandy’s need to keep an escape route in sight, the reminder that she is not trapped, she is not helpless, that there is somewhere she can run if she needs to.

Still struggling to breathe, Sandy looks up at her and whispers, “Thank you.”

Tripitaka nods, presses a now-familiar kiss to her temple and finds her hand like usual. “I’m right here, okay?”

It’s not okay, not at all. But it’s probably as close to it as she’s going to get.

Sandy looks to the Shaman, catches his eye as he comes back to himself, and nods for him to begin.

**

_He called himself a Druid._

_One of a particularly mean-spirited breed of demon that Pigsy was only dimly acquainted with. Druids and shamans and warlocks, maybe a handful of others; he didn’t know how they separated themselves, only knew that they specialised in particularly dark magics even by demon standards. Some played mind-tricks, others took pride in messing around with reality or perception. A secretive bunch, so far as he understood it, not the kind to play with others. That one of them had come out of the shadows for this..._

_Well, it said a lot._

_More than he cared to think about, honestly._

_He wasn’t particularly tall, their Druid, but he had a presence that made even Pigsy feel a bit dwarfed. His brains seemed to twitch and tingle inside his head when he stood too close, and the Druid seemed to take an especial pleasure in pressing into his personal space, unsettling and unnerving him and looking him in the eye like he was trying to look through into his soul._

_“You are to assist me,” he said, without preamble, “with my mission.”_

_He didn’t elucidate. Like he thought Pigsy was below knowing the details. Like he was looking through him and seeing only moving parts, some crude mechanical contraption built to obey and not ask any questions._

_Pigsy did not appreciate that. He didn’t appreciate being handed around like an errand boy, and he certainly didn’t appreciate being thrown into the open arms of a demon who seemed to have been made to suck the souls out of gods. Sometimes he had to wonder if Locke forgot what he really was, if their comfortable arrangement blinded her to the hard reality of what it meant._

_Or maybe she just enjoyed tormenting him, mocking him with small reminders of all the ways she held his life — all too literally — in her warm, heavy hands._

_And, apparently, the Druid’s too._

_Willing himself not to think about it, and wise enough not to antagonise the demon with the creepy brain powers, Pigsy nodded and cracked his knuckles._

_“Sure,” he said, with feigned bravado. “Gotcha. Righty-o.”_

_He should have figured out sooner, exactly what they expected of him. Should have worked out all the messy details when the Druid waved an impatient hand and muttered, “Take me to the infant.”_

_Should have realised they wouldn’t let him get away with just showing him the door then slipping away and running full-speed in the opposite direction._

_Locke had many flaws — Pigsy knew that better than anyone — but a lack of wits had never been one. She knew that he’d been bonding with the girl, knew that he’d developed some protective feelings for her, a kinship with the first young god he’d seen since the demon uprising. Knew, most important of all, that she’d have to put a stop to it for both their sakes._

_Her sake, mostly._

_His?_

_Well, he told himself she was right. Told himself it was for his sake too, to keep things simple, the way they had to be. She wasn’t wrong when she warned him about it, when she pointed out that he couldn’t afford to be soft and live the life he did, the life told himself he’d chosen. It was a kindness, cutting him off, making it clean._

_So he told himself, over and over again, as he led the Druid down to the depths, to the dark and gloom of the prisons, his grand bloody design, to the cold stone and iron bars, to—_

_To Sandy, a shivering little ball curled up in the far corner of her cell._

_Pigsy grimaced. “Wait here,” he said to the Druid. “Let me go first.”_

_The Druid, who didn’t seem to care very much how the god was handed over, so long as she was, merely shrugged and gestured for him to proceed. Still, even as he turned away, Pigsy found it was difficult to shake the nerve-grating sense that he was cutting him open, piercing him with those steely demonic eyes, studying not just his movements but his heart and his intentions as well. It was deeply unsettling, and more of a challenge than he’d care to admit to keep the visceral discomfort hidden from Sandy._

_Inside the cell, moving with practised caution, the routine familiar by now to both of them, he crouched in front of her. Careful, as always, to leave a little distance between them, space enough for her to feel safe._

_“Hi,” he said. “Getting bored with seeing this old face yet?”_

_She didn’t look up, didn’t uncurl her body, didn’t move at all._

_“Yes.” Her voice was especially hoarse today; he suspected the chill in her chest was bothering her. It didn’t bode well for her mood, nor for the task ahead of them. “Go away. Want to be by myself.”_

_Outside the cell, the Druid snorted humourlessly. “Charming.”_

_Pigsy ignored him, clenching his teeth. He inched a little closer to the quivering ball, approaching her like he would a wounded animal, the way he always did when she was curled up and miserable like this._

_“How’re you feeling today?” he asked, testing the waters._

_Sandy made a ragged, unhappy sound. “Said go away.”_

_“I...” He glanced back at the Druid, then sighed, feeling almost as rough as the poor kid looked. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen today. So how about you sit up a wee bit so I can take a look at you, hm?”_

_She whined, sullen and sickly, but did as she was told. Not out of any desire to appease him, he suspected, so much as fear of what would happen if she didn’t obey._

_She looked about as bad as she sounded, as bad as she’d been for days now: still glassy-eyed and pale, still clammy to the touch, still bloody pitiful from every angle. His breath caught a little at the sight of her, a familiar twinge settling behind his ribs, sorrow and frustration and the overpowering helplessness of someone who’d been forced to watch for days while a perfectly treatable illness grew worse and worse under inhumane conditions._

_It should have passed by now, he thought furiously, if only Locke would’ve found the compassion to let her sleep in a proper room. Another decade or so, and the girl would be all but untouchable by this sort of sickness, but she had a lot of still growing to do before her powers were strong enough to protect her from human weakness._

_Assuming the demons let her live that long._

_Not bloody likely, going by the impatient tapping from outside the cell._

_He turned, annoyed by the sound, and mustered a glare._

_“She’s in no condition,” he snapped, “for whatever it is you and Locke have planned for her.”_

_“Your employer has no hand in this,” the Druid corrected. “She was quite adamant about that.”_

_Pigsy sighed, absently rubbing Sandy’s back as she began to cough. “Of course she was.”_

_“As to my own plans,” the Druid went on, pointedly ignoring that, suffice it to say her physical condition is of no concern to me. Indeed, experience has taught me that a weakened body often serves best. Less struggling. Less unpleasantness all around.”_

_“On an adult, maybe,” Pigsy countered, trying to keep his anger in check. “But she’s just a kid. How the hell do you know what she can—”_

_“A god is a god.” He sneered, making it quite clear that he knew Pigsy counted among those numbers, for all that he’d tried to keep his head down; he knew exactly how personal his words were, and he relished every second of it. “Young or old, big or small. This one will be no different to any of the others I’ve, ah, worked with.”_

_His tone left no room for doubt as to what kind of ‘work’ he meant. Pigsy shuddered._

_“Real fountain of compassion, you are,” he muttered, mostly to himself. Then, turning back to Sandy, as gently as he could, “Do you feel up for a new visitor?”_

_She whimpered, but didn’t cower or struggle like she sometimes did when feeling frightened or overwhelmed. Pigsy wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not; most of the time, if she didn’t cry or cringe, it was because she was feeling too unwell to try. Didn’t bode well for whatever the demon lunatic had planned if she was that bad before it even started._

_Still, apparently the absence of protest was all the encouragement he needed to step into the cell. Didn’t even wait for an invitation, the self-important bastard, just barged in like he owned the place, and planted himself quite firmly between the two of them, booted feet kicking up wet dust._

_“Come,” he said to the quivering little ball. “Follow me, now. I have no intention of wasting more time on this endeavour than I absolutely have to.” When she didn’t immediately move to obey, he gnashed his teeth and pressed, harder, “I trust you are able to stand?”_

_To Pigsy’s surprise, Sandy nodded, doing so with with difficulty. Her limbs were so stiff from days of huddling and crouching that Pigsy was sure he heard her joints crack as she stood. Visibly dizzy, she swayed a little on her feet, but she didn’t cower from the Druid the way she so often cowered from him. If he hadn’t been able to feel the psychic hum of magic, the influence of something beyond either of their comprehension, Pigsy might have felt jealous._

_As it was, he had no room for that. Only for protecting her._

_“Stay with me,” he whispered, gripping her cold hand tight._

_Sandy gazed up at him, eyes damp with tears, and nodded._

_And for the first time in what felt like a hundred lifetimes Pigsy remembered how it felt to be proud of someone._

*

_They strapped her down._

_The Druid had requisitioned a cramped little chamber in a dusty corner of the dungeon, far away from the rest of the palace; Pigsy didn’t want to think too long or hard about why that was. An empty room, nearly half of which was taken up by a terrifying contraption that could only be described as a torture apparatus: a gigantic chair with straps for arms, legs, and chest, clearly designed to keep powerful beings subdued and unable to fight back._

_Pigsy did not let himself wonder what Locke was doing with such a contraption in the first place. If he went down that road..._

_The Druid cleared his throat. A burst of white static filled Pigsy’s mind, cutting off whatever stray thought he’d been pondering. Shaking himself, he looked down at the chair again, and the too-small god that was to occupy it._

_“Keeping it subdued,” the Druid told him, yanking the straps as tight as they would go, “will be your job.”_

_Pigsy felt his hackles rise at that, and not just because of the way he was being bossed around. “What is it with you demons and calling her ‘it’?”_

_The Druid thinned his lips, as though pondering whether this was a topic worth wasting his breath on. “We do not humanise the creatures we cut open,” he said after a beat. “It only leads to pointless sentimentality.”_

_It wasn’t the most comforting answer in the world. Pigsy sort of wished he hadn’t asked._

_Struggling feebly against her restraints, Sandy looked up at him and wailed, “It hurts!”_

_Her voice was a rasp, rough and ragged, like the strain of breathing was almost more than her little body could endure. Pigsy couldn’t tell whether it was fear tightening her throat or the straps bearing down on her weak chest; whatever the source, she sounded like she was on the brink of death. He could hardly bear to look at her, tied down and terrified, her big eyes pleading with him to be her salvation._

_“It’s okay,” he whispered, feeling his own chest tighten. “Everything will be okay, I promise.”_

_“But it hurts!”_

_She choked on a sob, too weak to make it out of her throat, then started coughing again. Hoarse and wet, but even as Pigsy braced for the inevitable flood of water it didn’t come. Could be she’d lost too much of her strength by now, or else there was something in the contraption that was damping her powers. Hard to know for sure, but just thinking of the latter chilled him to the bone._

_He swallowed a wave of vertigo and turned back to the Druid, gesturing queasily at the chair. “Is this thing really necessary?”_

_“For now.” A simple, if somewhat ominous answer. “My brethren in other circles are working on more... amenable techniques for extracting what we need from these creatures’ minds. But until those have been properly mastered, we must make do with what talents we have.” He leaned in, tugging at the straps again, as though trying to make them even tighter. “We have learned the dangers in underestimating a god, however docile and obedient it may appear at first. There are limits to our influence, after all, and I would not have them tested.”_

_“Could’ve fooled me,” Pigsy huffed. “I can feel your bloody ‘influence’ from all the way over here. Can’t even imagine what it’ll do to a half-formed mind like hers.” The words twisted like a knife in his gut. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”_

_The Druid, opting not to answer, merely quirked a brow and pressed a thin metallic object into his hands. “You are to sedate her with this.”_

_Pigsy blinked down at the thing. It looked like a needle, surgery-keen and seemingly much too fragile for his big hands, but its delicacy belied something deeply unnerving; in the half-second he’d been holding the blasted thing he could already feel the thrum of magic, the sparks crackling across its surface, a sickly sensation like ice-cold fluid trickling through his veins. It was so discomfiting, he almost dropped it right then and there._

_“What in the name of...?”_

_“As I said,” the Druid snapped, waving an impatient hand. “Until we are able to perfect a more streamlined method of keeping her kind calm, we must make use of what tools we have.”_

_“This isn’t a tool, it’s a...”_

_He trailed off, glancing down at the chair and the terrified, panicking kid strapped to it. She was still looking up at him with those huge tear-a-heart-out-at-ten-paces eyes of hers, pupils blown and chest heaving as much as the straps would allow. Her lips were moving, strangled noises lodged somewhere in her throat, like she was trying to speak but couldn’t find enough breath to make a sound; watching her, Pigsy was more than a little worried that she’d hyperventilate herself to death before they even began._

_“She can’t breathe,” he cried, almost pleading. “Can’t you loosen those blasted straps a bit? She’ll hurt herself if you don’t.”_

_The Druid seemed wholly unaffected by the idea. Like his neck wouldn’t be in a noose if he let the first baby god in captivity choke to death. Like it wasn’t for his own benefit as much as theirs to make sure she was as comfortable as possible. Like bloody-minded heartlessness was just one of the perks of his damn job._

_“She will do no such thing,” he said, with eerie calm, “provided you do your job properly.”_

_And he turned away, pressing his thumbs and fingertips together as his eyes slid shut, murmuring softly to himself as though in prayer._

_Pigsy watched him for a moment, baffled. He knew magic when he saw it, just as surely as he recognised the stuff when he held it in his hands, but he’d never seen a demon channel it quite like this before. Locke’s powers were purely physical, raw and unfettered, no finesse in anything she did; she went after what she wanted with brute force, and in all the time Pigsy had known her she’d never once failed to achieve it that way. A demon who dabbled in magic, in the dark arts, who used their talents to twist and manipulate? It was disturbing new ground, even for him._

_Unnerved by the sight of things he didn’t understand, he turned back to Sandy instead, swallowing back the helplessness that tied his insides in knots at the sight of her. She looked tinier than he’d ever seen her, even at her most pitiful, so much smaller than the contraption they had her in, so frightened, and so undeserving of what was happening to her. Pigsy didn’t often let himself feel too much guilt for the things his position forced him to do, but it was impossible not to feel the weight of it now, with her big eyes staring up at him, her small hands clutching the arms of the chair, her ragged, rattling breaths..._

_He forced back the horror, for her sake, and found a smile._

_“It’ll be okay,” he promised, hating himself for the lie, and all the more for so the way it made his voice crack. “I won’t let him hurt you.”_

_If she heard his half-hearted falsehoods, she showed no sign. She only shook her head, thrashing weakly against her restraints, wailing over and over and over again, “Let me go, please, I’m not dangerous, I’m good, I’m good, I’m not dangerous, please, please...”_

_And he knew that it was true, that there was nothing dangerous in her at all. So small and helpless, and all she could do to defend herself was cough up water._

_And he knew too, as surely as he knew that, that this was wrong, that she was just a child, bound and trapped and hurting, that he was complicit in her pain and her fear, that he was a part of it, making it worse, letting it happen, making it happen, helping—_

_And he knew, at least in some part of himself, that there was a choice for him here, that he wasn’t bound as she was, trapped and helpless with no place to go. He could throw down the stupid needle and turn his back on all of this, cut down the demon and cut the girl loose, scoop her up into his arms and flee into the night, never to look back at this wretched place again._

_The good thing. The right thing._

_And he knew, with more certainty than all the rest of that combined, that he would never, in all his endlessly long life, find the courage he’d need to do it._

_He held the needle up to the light. There wasn’t much of it, light, but the smooth metallic surface glinted as if he was standing under the sun. If he squinted, he was sure he could see the magic coating it, a shimmering rainbow of colours he didn’t know existed; it made his head feel strange and light, made his stomach roll and his vision swim. It made him feel strange and sick and unfathomably calm._

_It helped, in its unnatural demonic way, to prepare him for what was to come; it kept his hands strong and steady, his voice soft and kind, allowed him to look at her with fondness instead of horror, to make sure that the last thing she saw on his face would be compassion, kindness, the friend he wanted so badly to believe she’d found through his stories and stolen moments._

_“You trust me, right?” he asked. Voice low, forcing a smile, willing the calm to show and the horror to stay hidden. “You know I’d never do anything to hurt you.”_

_Her eyes widened. Her face was pale as death, drained completely of what little colour it might have once had. Her chest, straining and heaving against the heavy straps, grew perfectly still as she stared up at him, holding her breath completely. For just a moment, wonderful and terrible all at once, the fear seemed to bleed away entirely, swallowed and smothered and suffocated by something new._

_Something—_

_Clouds rolled above his head. Dark and dangerous, rumbling with threat. Pigsy had no fondness for water, but he knew lightning like the back of his hand. He could feel it in the air, growling and groaning, a hungry storm readying to break._

_“Liar!” Her voice cracked, but not with fear. Not this time. “Demon!”_

_“I’m not,” he whispered, trembling. “I’m not a demon or a...”_

_But he couldn’t finish. Anything he said now would only prove her right._

_So he took her by the wrist, as gently as he could with shaking hands and a shaking heart, and he shoved her sleeve up and out of the way. And he took a moment — only a moment, it was all he had — to look her in the eyes. He could do that much, at least. He owed it to her to do that._

_Then, as his breath stopped, turned the needle over in his hands, and leaned in._

**

“Barbaric.”

Sandy jolts upright, thrown into unexpected wakefulness. Her body is shaking, sort of seizing a little, and there is a pressure on her chest she can’t seem to shake. _Memory_ , she tells herself, and though it’s still fuzzy, the disorientation overpowering her ability to properly process it, she's familiar enough with the feeling by now to know that it will pass quickly.

Well. She hopes it will.

Next to her, looking nearly as perplexed as she feels, Tripitaka blinks. “Are you okay? Did something happen? Why did you...?”

Sandy shakes her head, trying without much success to clear the cobwebs and confusion. “Wasn’t me,” she manages. “I was... I mean, as far as I know, I _am_ well.”

What she means, of course, is that she is herself. Knows her name, knows Tripitaka’s, knows where they are and what they’ve been doing, knows why. Still, it’s easier to pretend that’s not the reason for Tripitaka’s worried look, pretend she really is asking about her health, that she’s not secretly wondering whether she will assault her.

Content with the answer — whichever version she hears — Tripitaka nods and turns away with a puzzled frown. Following her gaze, looking around the room, Sandy sees nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing like the last time she woke, only halfway herself and overwhelmed by the sound of Locke’s screams, the Shaman’s rage, a thousand sharp points throwing themselves at her from a thousand directions.

Nothing like that this time. A glance at Pigsy says he’s fine too. Upset, yes, and shaking, but not in any substantial distress. At least, not that Sandy can make out. The room is mostly silent, the only sound the Shaman’s boots shuffling on the thick carpet as he paces back and forth and the irritation rising in his voice as he rants, seemingly to himself.

“Barbaric,” he mutters again, spitting the word like a curse. “Those imbeciles with their primitive magics and delusions of grandeur. Small wonder the girl was ripped apart. Enlisting the aid of a sentimental fool would be stupid enough, but to attempt such archaic, primitive methods on one so young and untempered...” He throws up his hands, and Sandy pretends not to notice the way they’re trembling. “Idiocy!”

Exchanging another brief, confused glance with Sandy, Tripitaka clears her throat. “Is... uh, is everything all right?”

He stops pacing, shaking himself out of his thoughts and shrugging off his seething rage. “I am... frustrated.” The word sounds strange on his tongue, like he’s not entirely sure if it’s the right one. “We have not used such obscene practices in decades, perhaps even centuries. Subjugation, forcing the victim to yield against its will... it is harmful to the mind, and that is the best that can be said about it. _My_ kind would never debase themselves with such needless cruelty.”

On the other side of the room, still standing watch over Locke, Monkey snorts. Derisive and angry, there is a real threat to the sound, and his eyes are as dark as Sandy has ever seen them.

“Sure,” he snarls. “Because manipulation and deception are so much kinder and gentler, right?” He glances at Sandy, only cursorily apologetic, then coughs and looks away. “At least she knew she was being tortured. At least he gave her the chance to get scared or defiant or... I dunno, whatever it is that kids feel when they’re about to be tortured by screwed-up demons.”

Sandy grimaces. “Monkey, please...”

“Right.” He coughs, and the apology grows a little more sincere, softening his features in the split-second before he turns back to the Shaman. “Trust me: what you did to us was _way_ worse.”

The Shaman, equally furious, meets his gaze with fire behind his eyes. For a moment, it looks like they’re about to set each other ablaze; Sandy does not cringe or cower — she’s had a lifetime of that already — but it takes more of an effort than she’d care to admit to hold the impulse at bay.

“You know nothing, Monkey King,” the Shaman growls hotly. “I strongly advise you to return your attention to your charge, and allow me to keep my focus on mine.” He doesn’t even spare him a glance, or Sandy, instead turning to glare at Pigsy. “Did it not occur to you, even for a moment, that what you were doing might have far-reaching consequences?”

“Of course it did,” Pigsy whispers, in a quiet, heartbroken voice. “But what else was I supposed to do?”

 _Anything_ , Sandy thinks, though she lacks the strength and courage to say the word aloud. _You could have done anything. But all you did was lie._

The Shaman, seemingly upset on her behalf, holds Pigsy’s gaze for a moment or two longer, then turns away in acute disgust. “Barbaric,” he mutters again.

Tripitaka clears her throat, rather more tentatively this time with all the violent emotions seething on the air.

“Is that why you brought us back out?” she asks, a little hesitant to antagonise him in this mood. “To yell at Pigsy?”

“Of course not.” His eyes flash flame as he turns back to them; Sandy pushes her younger self as far down as she can, and meets his gaze unflinching. “I brought you out so that I might ensure you were...”

He stops, cutting himself off impossibly fast, then breaks into a series of hums and coughs, like he’s afraid his voice will try and finish the sentence without his permission.

Frowning up at him, Sandy is almost certain he’s blushing.

She doesn’t understand that at all. Emotions are complicated enough when they’re inside her own head; she’s still a long way away from learning how to interpret them in other people. Human or demon or god, they each wear their emotions differently, and sometimes the same people wear the same ones differently on a different day. It’s maddening, confusion that makes her head spin, and she gave up a long time ago on trying to make it make sense.

So — as she always does when she’s puzzled by something that should be simple — she shrugs and sighs and waits for Tripitaka to explain it.

Tripitaka. Who, as always, seems to understand completely, without even having to think about it.

She doesn’t stand up, still unwilling to leave Sandy’s side even when she’s relatively well, but the frown falls from her face, frustrated confusion giving way to something sweeter, a tenderness that Sandy is intimately acquainted with.

“You wanted to make sure we were all right,” she says to the Shaman, achingly soft. “After what happened the last time.”

“That is _preposterous_.” He’s blushing even more furiously now, so much so that even Monkey seems to notice it; blessedly, he’s smart enough to smother his amusement this time. “It was simply good sense to... that is, given how easily distracted your rotund friend is, to say nothing of his proclivity for inflicting unwitting harm on others... I mean to say, it was _prudent_...”

Monkey gives up his efforts to swallow his laughter. “You care!”

“I assure you, I do not.” He glances back at the bed, the covers rising and falling in rhythm with Locke’s too-shallow breathing, and the flush fades from his face, leaving him looking drained and pale. “I simply lack the strength to bring any more of you back from the brink of self-destruction. I cannot... I _will not_...”

Sandy’s throat clenches; she feels herself grow a little paler too. “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispers.

The Shaman does not respond for a very long time, so much that she wonders if he heard her at all. She watches as he works his jaw, tightening and loosening his shoulders, his whole body tense and on edge, as though it’s being flooded with some strange new experience. It is rather comforting, she muses, to see someone else fail to work through their most basic emotions. Even if he is a demon, still his struggles make her feel less alone in her own.

Finally, when the tense silence has stretched taut enough to snap, he shakes himself out of his thoughts, straightens his back, and turns back to them with some measure of his usual composure.

“Regardless,” he says, like the word is a punctuation mark, a neat line drawn through his feelings, “you are clearly of sound enough mind to irritate me. Thus, I see no point in continuing this frivolous procrastination.”

And so saying, he grips Pigsy by the temples — none too gently, if his grunt is anything to go by — and, without giving them so much as a moment to brace themselves, begins reciting a quiet, sober incantation.

Sandy, well accustomed to this by now, feels her pulse begin to race.

Tripitaka squeezes her hand, as she so often does in the moments before they go under, balming her with the familiar pressure, the familiar warmth, the grounding, tethering contact.

“It’ll be okay,” she says, like always. “He _does_ care, whatever he says. And he won’t let anything happen.”

 _Again_ , she doesn’t say.

Sandy doesn’t know if she should find it comforting or unnerving, a demon who cares so deeply that he would risk embarrassment, that he would needlessly pull them out just to ask — in his clumsy, arrogant way — ‘are you all right?’. But she’s seen it with her own eyes, again and again, and she knows that it’s true, that he does care, that he wouldn’t let anything happen.

Not after the last time.

Not after—

But before she can will her mind, already growing fuzzy, into finishing that thought, the familiar dark swells again to claim her.

**

_He’d never held anything as heavy as that tiny little needle._

_Nestled between his finger and his thumb, it seemed to sap every ounce of strength from his body. It was an unfathomable thing, the effort of holding it, of simply keeping it in his hand as he bent over the exposed, ice-white skin of Sandy’s arm. He was known for his strength, famous for it, and yet this tiny instrument of death had pushed him beyond his limits._

_“Don’t look,” he told her, trying to keep his voice hushed, a whisper to match the Druid’s quiet chanting. “It’ll only hurt for a second, then you won’t feel a thing.”_

_“Please.” Her voice was softer than a breath, strangled by fear and pain. “Please, don’t, please, you promised, please...”_

_Pigsy clenched his teeth. “I don’t have a choice. I can’t—”_

_And then he made the fatal mistake of looking into her eyes._

_“Please,” she rasped again, and he had never seen such terror, such pain, so much of every terrible thing in a face so young, in eyes so pale, in a child so utterly undeserving of any of this._

_He cut a quick glance at the Druid. Still chanting, still focused. Eyes still closed._

_Swallowing thickly, he turned back to Sandy, to her wide wet water-blue eyes, and felt a little piece of his soul pull itself free and run for its life._

_There was so little he could do; in his own way he was as trapped as she was, doomed to share her fate — or worse — if he showed even the slightest hint of resistence._

_He couldn’t spare her from what was about to happen, the probe on her mind, whatever meagre knowledge the Druid would wrestle out of her by compulsion or by force. Couldn’t spare her the ordeal, the suffering, the catatonic fate-worse-than-death that fell to all gods once their minds had been wrung dry. Couldn’t save her from the fate she’d been doomed to from before she was even born. Couldn’t save her, couldn’t protect her, couldn’t do a damned bloody thing._

_But maybe—_

_Maybe, if he was silent and stealthy, he could give the kid a fighting chance. A chance to fight, at least, if she was strong enough to take it, if she had the courage._

_If she—_

_He took a deep breath. Closed his eyes to block out hers._

_“Stay very, very still,” he whispered. “Don’t even breathe.”_

_And he silently, stealthily, hid the needle inside his bracer._

*

_The Druid didn’t notice until it was too late._

_He returned from his chanting just as Pigsy was straightening back up, pulling Sandy’s sleeve back down with a hastiness he was sure would give him away. Might have done, even, if the Druid had any interest in sparing his charge more than a passing glance._

_With a shaky, nervous sigh, Pigsy patted her shoulder, as reassuring as he could muster, and whispered one last time, “Whatever you do, don’t move.”_

_He turned away quickly, unable to stick around long enough to see if she acknowledged that. For her own sake, she’d better not have; just a nod or a word, and neither one of them would live to see another sunrise._

_The Druid, somehow even more unnaturally calm than he was before, raised a questioning, cynical eyebrow. “Is it properly sedated?”_

_Heart hammering in his chest, throat squeezing his larynx into uselessness, Pigsy could only nod._

_It had been centuries since he’d last felt this kind of overpowering, all-devouring terror, centuries since he’d last felt fear of any kind. It was one of the many, many promises Locke had thrown onto the table when she was looking to recruit him. ‘Stick with me, my sweet, and you won’t ever have to be afraid of my kind again’. Such a simple deal, he’d thought at the time, eager and hungry and desperate to be something more than a cowardly cretin hiding in the shadows for the rest of his life._

_Now, all this time later, he was slowly starting to realise the price._

_Well, he’d never been the quickest learner, had he? Wasn’t that what Locke had been counting on?_

_“Can I go now?” he managed, a tremulous, barely-audible croak._

_The Druid looked at him like he’d lost his mind._

_“Absolutely not.” His voice cut through the fear, twisting and warping Pigsy’s mind until he found himself wondering, inexplicably, how he could ever have thought of such a thing. “Your task is to ensure that the god remains motionless and compliant for as long as my labours require. I cannot spare the strength nor the hands to hold it in place if it begins to struggle in its sleep, nor can I afford the distraction if its mind is not kept quiet.” He looked him in the eye, steady and very serious. “If the sedative seems to be wearing off, reapply it immediately. It is imperative that she remain still and subdued at all times. Do you understand?”_

_Pigsy swallowed thickly. He didn’t dare look down, but he desperately hoped that Sandy was listening and paying attention, that she would have the sense and the strength to not give herself away._

_He watched closely as the Druid moved in, bending over Sandy’s motionless form to clip away a lock of her hair, then coughed and turned his gaze elsewhere as he straightened and grew sober._

_“I require silence from you as well,” he said to Pigsy, steepling his fingers and straightening his spine. “You have your duty. Attend to it as diligently and quietly as you are able.”_

_And as his eyes slid shut, the hush that fell over the cold, dank room seemed to have teeth and claws._

*

_It was fine, for about five minutes._

_The longest five minutes of Pigsy’s life, true enough, but five minutes still. Sandy remained motionless, remained silent and obedient; she cracked her eyes half-open every now and then, searching subtly for his face, his eyes, for a sign that he was there, but otherwise remained as lifeless as a corpse._

_Pigsy gave her what little reassurance he could. Not enough, not even close, but all he had. Keeping himself still as well, he didn’t even dare try to touch her. But he met her scared, half-lidded gaze when she sought him out, and he dug down deep and mustered a smile to keep her brave, and for five centuries-long minutes, it was enough._

_And then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t._

_The Druid, deep in his trance, was murmuring to himself when it happened. Half-sentences, sometimes half-words, murmurs of encouragement to no-one in particular, and every now and then snatches of poetry in the ancient language of the gods._

_That got Pigsy’s attention. An infant god already schooled in the language was fascinating enough, but the demon’s apparent interest in it was a whole lot more so. As far as he knew, the gods’ language was worthless to anyone who wasn’t one of them. The demons had worked so damn hard to wipe the gods off the face of the world; what possible use would they have for their language now?_

_Still, the intense, feverish look on the Druid’s face said that the knowledge was valuable to him somehow, and something told Pigsy he didn’t want to know why._

_He didn’t have time to ponder it. He’d only just started to fathom the significance of what he was hearing when the flow of words cut off like a slammed door._

_A sharp, sucked-in breath from the Druid, and then—_

_And then Sandy started screaming._

_Not the scared wails and miserable sobs Pigsy was used to, the overflowing emotions of a child trapped in a terrifying situation. This was something else entirely, something utterly unspeakable. Fear, yes, but pain as well, raw and ragged and awful, agony like the splitting of bone or the tearing of flesh, a never-ending torrent of pain upon pain the likes of which he’d never heard before._

_He started, sickened to his stomach by the sound, and for a moment his entire body stood frozen in place. He couldn’t move, could barely even breathe, and before he had the chance to pull himself together and try to offer the poor thing a little comfort, the Druid lurched backwards, threw his head back, and let out a scream of his own._

_It was, if possible, even more stomach-churning coming from him. His preternatural calm had been a staple of their interactions thus far; until that moment he’d been so thoroughly composed Pigsy had wondered if he was capable of feeling anything at all._

_Apparently he was._

_The first howl was followed by another, a cacophony of pain upon pain that harmonised sickeningly well with the screams still tearing out of Sandy._

_Paralysed and horrified, Pigsy didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know if there was anything he could do, for either one of them, that wouldn’t make things worse; he inched away from them both, scared out of his wits, and was about half a breath away from throwing the door open and running for his cowardly life when the Druid recovered his senses._

_A little of them, anyway._

_Breathing raggedly, visibly struggling to keep from bursting into another round of shrieks, he whirled to face Pigsy, eyes wide and unseeing, madness blazing like a wildfire behind them._

_“You idiot!” he roared, breathless through his suffering, “What did you do?”_

_“Nothing!” True, if only technically. Still, he suspected the tremors in his voice did little to make him sound convincing. “I could ask you the same question!”_

_“I...” It took a visible effort, just getting that word out. “I am attempting to do my job! Her mind is... resisting.” As though responding to the word, Sandy let out another ear-splitting howl, and the Druid promptly doubled over as well. “She is supposed to be unconscious!”_

_Pigsy’s stomach dropped into his boots, then immediately leapt up into his mouth. “She... uh, that is... she...”_

_“Be silent!”_

_And for a long moment, there was only the sound of Sandy’s screams and the Druid’s desperate exertions, a violent, below-the-surface sort of struggle that Pigsy couldn’t understand and wasn’t allowed to see. He could certainly see the results, though, the sweat breaking out on the Druid’s forehead, the rising pitch of Sandy’s wails, the tension in the room rising to a crescendo even as everything appeared to be completely, utterly still._

_She wasn’t struggling. That was the first thing Pigsy noticed when he dared to look at her. Even as her voice rose and rose, still somehow she looked as motionless as if he really had rendered her unconscious; beyond the twisting of her mouth, her face twisted, she looked almost dead. Whatever resistance she was offering, it was clearly all inside her mind._

_Too late, he realised that this was probably what the Druid had meant when he insisted she be kept still and sedated. Not physically, the chair and its torture-device straps took care of that. But her mind..._

_He should have known. Should have been smarter, should have used his own bloody mind. He’d seen the damage she could do, an infant god with no training and no education; she summoned storms when she felt scared, vomited water when she felt sick, called down powers she had no way of controlling. He knew all that, had seen it happen a thousand times in the safety of the prison, and yet he hadn’t thought, hadn’t even considered—_

_He’d wanted to give her a fighting chance. How could he not have realised that would mean unleashing hell?_

_“Sentimental idiot,” he gritted out under his breath. “Bloody soft-hearted fool.”_

_Luckily for him, the Druid was too busy trying to deal with whatever was happening to pay attention; if he heard Pigsy’s furious mutterings, he was in no condition to chide him for them._

_“Sedate her, you mindless imbecile,” he snarled, between bursts of pain. “Now!”_

_Pigsy fumbled for the needle. It glinted ethereally when he slipped it out of his bracer, catching the light as if it had never been hidden at all. Hands shaking, he turned back to Sandy; her eyes were rolling back in her head, lips flecked with foam, but her body was still impossibly still. He had never seen anything like it, not in all his many years; it struck him on a vivid, visceral level._

_Her skin was like stone when he tried to press the needle in. Hard and unyielding; even without the shaking of his hands he couldn’t find purchase anywhere on her. The magic seethed, turning the air sour where it touched, but it seemed unable to find a way to break the skin. It was as if her body, unable to struggle in the usual way, had found another way to resist, making itself almost impervious._

_Fingertips pressed to her frozen skin, he could feel the struggles beneath the surface, the veins and sinew and bones, every molecule she had inside of her fighting and resisting and straining, rejecting anything that tried to touch her, even him._

_Especially him._

_Another scream, and another and another, each one worse than the last, until he could almost hear her mind starting to crack, pulling itself apart with the strain of fighting and fighting, of pushing and shoving, of throwing itself against the unwanted intrusion, of struggling — hopelessly, futilely, in vain — to protect itself._

_“Stop!” he shouted to the Druid. “Please! She can’t handle any more!”_

_“Neither can I,” the Druid forced out, deathly serious. “Her mind is twisted, her powers utterly beyond controlling. She is too young, too raw; there is violence in her that would never exist in one older and more aware of itself. This...” He coughed, and for a fraction of a second almost expected him to start spewing water. “This is why I ordered you to sedate her, you fool! Because she is too young to control herself! She will fight until both of our minds are in pieces—”_

_He broke off, shuddering and spasming, and let out another awful moan._

_“So get out of her head!” Pigsy cried desperately. “Just leave her alone!”_

_“If I could do that,” the Druid panted, “do you not think I would have?”_

_So he was as helpless as the girl. Wonderful._

_Pigsy took a deep breath, steadying himself. He squeezed Sandy’s wrist, trying again to find purchase for the needle. Her eyes focused for just a moment, finding and holding his, and in the scant space between screams and sobs, her lips twisted in another soundless “please”._

_He choked on his grief, his shame. “I’m sorry! I thought I was helping!”_

_Her only response was another throat-tearing scream. Behind him, the Druid fell to his knees, clutching his head._

_Pigsy swallowed hard. Under his hand, Sandy’s skin was still solid as stone, her body resisting him just as surely as her mind resisted the Druid. If he wanted her sedated, it seemed he would have to do it by force._

_He leaned in, pushed her sweat-tangled hair away from her face and pressed a sorrowful kiss to her temple; under his lips, he could feel the veins throbbing, struggling, fighting..._

_“I’m sorry,” he whispered again. “I know I said I wouldn’t hurt you, but I have to. I have no choice.”_

_He braced himself against the edge of the chair, locking his muscles and willing himself not to blink, not to look away, to face the hell he had unleashed. He could feel the needle trembling in his hands, its unnatural light suddenly wan and sickly, like it was as horrified by all this as he was. And Sandy was so still and her skin was so pale, her body so tense in its stillness, every inch of her a living war; Pigsy knew almost nothing about magic or medicine, but he could see the moment between life and death stretching out in front of him like a thread pulled unbearably tight._

_He squeezed her wrist again, hard enough that the bones might have shattered if she were anything less than a god, enough that they might be a little broken even so. And he watched, numb and sick as the vein swelled and grew visible. And he held his breath, held himself as still as he could while every inch of him was shaking._

_And he closed his eyes, his courage faltering at the last minute, just as it always did, and he choked on another futile apology, a futile prayer, a futile sob..._

_And he jammed the needle into her arm with every ounce of strength he had._

**


	18. Chapter 18

**

Sandy is still screaming when she comes around.

She is in terrible, unspeakable pain. Worse, so much worse than it has been before, headaches upon headaches upon headaches, a thousand agonies all piling up on top of each other, knives and arrows and shafts of magic all tearing through her mind, all ripping and cutting and slashing at her insides. It blinds her, devastates her, and for an endless, agonising moment, there is no room for anything inside of her but walls and walls of pain.

A memory. This, she’s sure of. But if it has a place inside her, she can’t seem to reach it.

She knows where she is, though. It is a small, distant mercy, but one with value. She knows who she is, too, and how she got here and what they were doing. She knows enough about herself and her condition to not feel frightened, to know that she’s among friends, that the pain in her head is the only enemy here, and that it is not real.

She knows that the hand on her shoulder belongs to Tripitaka. She knows that the voice murmuring in her ear belongs to the Shaman. She knows that they’re in Locke’s palace, that Locke is unconscious, that Monkey is watching over her. She knows that Pigsy—

She pitches forward, clutching her head, suddenly and violently overwhelmed.

Pain, yes, still, but horror as well, almost more brutal in its own way, certainly more visceral. In her mind’s eye, she sees him standing over her, towering, his voice a low rumble, and it is instinct that makes her cover her ears, body curling in on itself in a hopeless effort to block out something that doesn’t exist.

It’s all so hazy, so distorted. She can’t hear words, can’t see shapes, can only make out distant echoes and shadows of the world around her. Familiar, safe, but so indistinct. And it hurts terribly, her skull splitting apart too hard to even try; for a long moment all she can do is hold onto herself, try to keep her head from cracking into pieces, and flounder for something to ground her.

 _Tripitaka_.

She’s there, she’s always there. Kneeling over her, whispering gentle comforts in her ear, quiet but clear, soft but strong. One hand on her shoulder, the other at her back, anchoring, tethering, making the pain recede just by being there, being close, being _her_.

It takes a while for her mind to right itself, for the pain to subside enough for her to raise her head. Aided, as always, by Tripitaka — and, most likely, by the Shaman too, if the drained look on his face is any measure to judge — it is a relief beyond words when she takes a breath and finds it doesn’t hurt.

Panting, still trying to orient herself, she tries to take stock of what she’s just been through, the moments in her life she reexperienced. She expects the memories to return with their usual clarity once the immediate discomfort has faded, expects the voice in her head to become clearer, the fractured images to solidify and become tangible truth, but this time it doesn’t happen. The more she tries to reach them, the further they drift out of her grasp, indistinct and hazy, like dreams fading to oblivion at the point of waking.

“Why don’t I remember it?” she asks, blinking up at the Shaman. “Not his memories or my own. I remember pain, terrible pain, but the rest is... gone.”

He crouches in front of her, touches her temples carefully with his fingertips. With their faces close, she can see the lines marring his perfect features, exhaustion carving rivers and streams out of him. He looks so old, so worn; she feels deeply, devastatingly sorry for him.

After a moment, he pulls away, slumping back with a weary sigh.

“The memories are there,” he says, sounding tired but somewhat relieved. “They are precisely where they should be, taking their place alongside the others. If you are unable to access them, it is merely the product of...” He trails off, looking oddly discomfited. It makes Sandy’s skin prickle, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. “Well. Suffice it to say that it is perfectly normal, after moments of such intense...”

He huffs an awkward-sounding cough, then stands and moves away, seemingly unwilling to finish.

Sandy, as usual, turns to Tripitaka to ease a little of her confusion.

Tripitaka pats her back; she doesn’t look especially worried, and that sets Sandy’s mind somewhat at ease.

“Trauma,” she says, ever so gently; the word is unfathomably heavy, pressing down on Sandy’s fragile mind like a dead weight. “It’s normal to have trouble recalling moments of intense trauma.”

“Is it?”

She tests the idea on her tongue as she asks, and on her mind as well. She remembers pain, remembers the razed feeling in her throat as it tore from so much screaming, remembers being more scared than she’d ever been in her life, remembers—

Stops, realising from a numb sort of distance that she’s whimpering.

Tripitaka is there in an instant, of course, holding her close and rocking her and whispering, soft and secret and so, so tender, “Yeah, it is.”

They stay like that for a little while, long enough for Sandy to compose herself, for the last of the pain to dissolve and fade, for her thoughts to take a more coherent shape inside of her.

It is a hellish nightmare of a thing, lifting her gaze to find Pigsy looking at her.

He’s watching from the other side of the room, as far away as he can get without crawling out onto the balcony, and his face is paler than she’s ever seen it. He doesn’t say anything — he seems almost incapable of speech — but his expression is a devastated, devastating thing. Like a savage beast faced with its own reflection, or maybe a gentle soul learning for the first time that his actions brought about a thousand deaths.

Sandy swallows. Her mouth tastes of acid and blood, like she tried to bite through her tongue but only made herself ill. She doesn’t relish it, but at the same time it feels rather fitting.

Slowly, carefully, she says, “Pigsy.” 

The name is a test, for herself rather more than for him; she wants to see if she can say it without breaking, without drowning or losing herself, without wanting to scream. It’s a horrible thing, sourness that sticks to the roof of her mouth and washes away the other taste, but it doesn’t make her scared and it doesn’t make her sick and it doesn’t make her scream. What it does make her feel, she’s not sure it has a name, but she can still speak and think and breathe through it, and for now that’s enough.

“I...” The word seems to stick in his throat. “I don’t know what to say.”

Sandy’s stomach twists sharply. “Maybe ‘sorry’?”

“Right, right.” He grimaces. “I mean, of course I’m sorry. Of course I...”

Doesn’t seem able to finish, but it’s enough. Sandy lets it all wash over her, the meaningless word, _sorry_ , and the real weight behind it. She knows that he means it, knows that it runs deeper than maybe anything he’s ever said in his life, but she can’t seem to hold it down and make it mean anything to her. It’s like the word has disappeared into the same hazy void as the memory, some dull, dimly-lit corner of her mind that hurts when she pokes at it.

“I don’t...” She sounds painfully hoarse, even to her own ears. “It’s strange. I barely even remember what you did. Just... I remember being scared. I remember it hurt. Remember you standing over me, remember you saying something. Don’t remember what or why or... or anything, really. Just remember how big you were. So big, and... and upset. I think you...” Her eyes sting. She can’t really place the emotions behind that either; her heart, it seems, is as blurry as her mind. “I think you were scared too.”

He’s blinking now, rapidly, like he’s fighting back tears.

“Yeah,” he says in a whisper. “I was scared too.”

Tripitaka, keeping one hand on Sandy’s back to steady her, says, almost as quietly, “You thought you were helping her.”

The jolting in Sandy’s stomach gets a little worse; she feels storm-tossed and seasick. “He told me to... he told me not to move.”

She can’t bear to look at him as she speaks, can’t bear to see his face, to watch him react to the things he did, the things he remembered vividly enough to put them back in her head, the things Tripitaka says she’s too _traumatised_ to recall properly herself. She closes her eyes instead, and focuses on her breathing, both palms pressing hard against her belly, catching its rhythm as it rises and falls.

After a long beat, she hears him swallow.

“Yeah,” he says again, distant and sorrowful, like he’s speaking from somewhere else, somewhere far away from here. “Yeah, I told you not to move. He ordered me to keep you sedated, and instead I kept you awake. I thought I was giving you a chance, letting you stay aware and alert, letting you fight back. I thought I was sparing you the pain of that insidious needle and its magic. I thought I...”

“You were an imbecile,” the Shaman says sharply. “Your Druid was right about that, at least.”

“I...” Pigsy makes a strained sound, then deflates with a sigh. “Yeah, I know.”

The Shaman growls, ignoring the humility. “Typical god,” he goes on. “Disobeying clear and explicit instructions simply because they come from a demon, never stopping to think that those instructions may have been given for a reason, never stopping to think that we might be thinking of something more than our own self-interest.” Sandy looks up, finds him glaring at Pigsy with a rage she hasn’t seen since the prison, since Locke started screaming and shaking, since he thought she might die; it is both touching and terrifying to be the source of it this time. “I hope you realise that everything she became was your doing.”

Pigsy blanches even paler. “I... yeah. I do realise that, yeah.”

And he looks at Sandy like he’s expecting — no, like he _wants_ — her to stand up and strike him down again and again and again.

Sandy doesn’t. Doesn’t strike him down, doesn’t move at all. She’s confused and very upset, and she can still feel the thrumming echoes of pain tapping inside her skull.

She looks up at Tripitaka, desperate for a simple answer, an easy way out of all this emotion, for someone to tell her what to think and how to feel and what to do.

“I should forgive him.” She says it very slowly, carefully, feeling out the words, the idea. Her heart tells her this is what Tripitaka wants to hear, what she wants Sandy to feel. “Because his intentions were good. No matter the consequences, he meant well. So I should forgive him. Yes?”

Tripitaka makes a quiet sound, like heartbreak. “His intention were good,” she echoes hollowly. “And he did mean well. But he still... _you_ still...” She shakes her head. “I can’t tell you how to feel about this, Sandy. I can’t tell you how to react or what to do. I just... I can’t.”

Sandy feels a sob catch in her throat. “But I need you to!”

It surprises her, though perhaps it shouldn’t, that Tripitaka is the one who lets her tears fall, the one who doesn’t even try to hold them in.

“I know you do,” she says, sounding lost and broken and a hundred other things. “I would if I could.”

“But you can’t.” The word tastes like poison. “So you say. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to...”

Stops, burying her face in Tripitaka’s shoulder again. Drowns, or tries to drown, in the warmth of her robes, the scent of sandalwood and candle-wax and monastery, of exhaustion and exertion and exercise, of Tripitaka in all her myriad shapes and forms and names, of the only haven, the only home she’s ever known, the only place in the world she ever felt truly safe.

And she lets herself cry a little too, in rhythm with the shaking of Tripitaka’s body, their tears mingling and mixing, adding salt to the list of scents and senses, the list of worlds and moments trapped in the fabric of those warm blue robes. And it doesn’t make her feel any better, the crying, but at least she’s not doing it alone.

It takes a long time for the moment to burn itself out, and when it does Sandy finds that she’s reluctant to leave Tripitaka’s arms, to pull free from the warmth and sanctuary, to return to a world that is so cold and cruel, a world that would make her feel so much pain.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, and she means it so deeply even as she hurts and hurts and hurts.

Tripitaka laughs, a watery, humourless laugh that sounds more like grief than mirth. “Sandy,” she says, chiding gently, “you’re the one person in this room who has nothing to apologise for right now.”

Looking around at the others, at their tight, miserable faces, Sandy doesn’t think that’s true at all.

“All of this is because of me,” she mumbles, ashamed and lost. “Everyone in this room is suffering because of me. How can you think I have nothing to apologise for? The only reason we’re is here because my mind wasn’t strong enough to mend itself without help.”

Rising to his feet, the Shaman growls. The ferocity of it startles her into silence, makes her jolt backwards a little, pressing her back against the wall like it could somehow shield her from behind.

“Do not blame yourself for your friend’s misdeeds,” he tells her, as cold and sharp as ice. “You have enough stupidity of your own already. Do not attempt to claim his as well.”

Tripitaka chuckles, a little bit tragic but also sort of genuinely amused. “He means that this isn’t your fault,” she says softly. “None of it is. You were a child. You were scared, you were helpless.”

“I’m not a child now,” Sandy says, rather more defensively than she means to. “And I’m not helpless any more, either. I should be able to endure my old... my old traumas, without losing my mind. We have all suffered pain, everyone in this room. But none of you were left _broken_.”

The smile falls from Tripitaka’s face. She sighs. “Sandy...”

“No.” She looks up at the Shaman, then points at Monkey. “You drove him into the forbidden corners of his memory, the places even he was afraid of. He relived his darkest moments, his worst _traumas_ , and he came out unscathed. Perhaps even stronger for having endured it.” She turns back to Tripitaka, and feels her whole self soften against her will. “And he had nothing more than what I have to keep him anchored: _you_.”

Across the room, Monkey’s watching them with a sad look on his face. “Yeah,” he says, deathly quiet. “But I wasn’t a kid when it happened.”

“Indeed.” The Shaman looks like he wants to smirk but knows better in a moment as delicate as this. “And my methods were not nearly so primitive as your Druid’s. His kind have always been barbarians, obsessed with achieving results as quickly as possible, damn the effects or the consequences to demon and god alike.” His expression grows a little less severe as he speaks, but only a little. “It is a credit to my former... ah, employer... that he learned from that mistake.”

“Employer.” Monkey snorts, derision masking something darker, and the air seems to vanish from the room. “Backstabbing liar, you mean.”

The Shaman’s eyes flash, a warning or possibly a threat.

“Take a few minutes,” he says to Sandy, expression suddenly hard as stone. “Compose yourself. Process your pain, as best you can. Then we shall resume.”

So saying, he waves a hand and disappears into thin air.

*

As soon as she’s sure they’re alone, Tripitaka rounds on Monkey with fire in her eyes.

“Why did you say that?” she cries. “Is this really the right time to bring it up?”

He shrugs. Sandy can tell he’s not quite as unaffected as he wants them to believe, but his voice is steady as a rock when he says, “Because it’s the truth.”

“Monkey—”

“Seriously. I’m doing him a favour. You think Davari wouldn’t have turned around and stabbed him in the back too, the second as he got what he wanted? It’s not my fault if the self-righteous idiot can’t handle the truth.”

“That’s not the point, and you know it,” Tripitaka snaps. “Now isn’t the time to bring up old grudges.”

Sandy ignores her. Tries to ignore Monkey as well, though he’s bigger and louder and his presence weighs rather a lot more. She blocks them both out, as best she can, and forces herself up to her feet. She moves with some difficulty, legs still weak and shaky under her, shuffling over to where he’s standing, to the bed and the demon still lying motionless under the covers.

The bed seems much bigger now that she’s closer, and Locke looks uncharacteristically small cocooned in the blankets and sheets. She’s not sure exactly why the sight makes her feel so sad — she knows it shouldn’t, not after everything Locke’s done, everything she is — and yet somehow it does.

“She spoke true,” she murmurs, mostly to herself, silently hoping the others are still too busy arguing to pay her any mind. “She said she never touched me. It was the truth.”

“Only because she made him do it instead,” Monkey huffs, jabbing a finger at Pigsy. “Didn’t want to get her hands dirty, so she got some other idiot to do it for her.” There’s no sympathy in him when he looks at Pigsy, but he doesn’t look quite as angry as the Shaman did either. “It doesn’t make her better.”

Sandy doesn’t look at Pigsy, or at Monkey. She looks down at Locke, still perfectly motionless except for the shallow rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. She hopes, in spite of herself, that her dreams are peaceful ones.

“It doesn’t make her better,” she agrees. “But it makes me less scared of her.”

Tripitaka, still sitting where she was a moment ago, sucks in her breath. She doesn’t say anything, but Sandy can sense her unease, sorrow bordering on physical discomfort; she wonders if it’s because of their connection, like the way she could feel her grief for the Scholar, or whether they simply know each other so intimately by now that they can interpret every shift in each other’s breathing.

Monkey, being less empathic in general, merely frowns. “You were never scared of her,” he says, voice tight and strained, like he’s trying to calculate an impossible equation. 

Sandy tries to smile, but it’s too hard. “Not less scared than I _was_ ,” she says quietly. “I mean that I’m less scared of _her_ than I am of _him_.”

“Oh,” Monkey says, looking like he’s sorry he mentioned it at all.

Across the room, Pigsy makes a strained, whimper-like sound.

To his credit, he doesn’t try to say he’s sorry again. Smarter than he looks — smarter now than he was all those years ago, too, it seems — he knows to leave her alone. Maybe knows better that to draw the attention back onto him, or maybe he just doesn’t want it. He’s never been one to seek the limelight, whether it was for good or bad. Nothing like Monkey, all showmanship and bravado. Nothing like—

“Hey.” _Monkey_ , all diamond eyes and stone muscles; his hand is strong and solid, clamping down on Sandy’s shoulder so hard she winces. “If you want, we can go somewhere and kick the stuffing out of each other? Hush up that big noisy brain of yours for a little while?”

It’s very thoughtful of him, and incredibly tempting. But—

“Can’t.” Simple, honest; she still has that, at least. “Head’s still spinning from... all of this. Don’t know if I can stay standing for much longer, much less give you a good fight.” It is oddly endearing, the disappointed look on his face, and it’s almost enough to make her smile. “But later, definitely.”

“Yeah?” He looks like he needs it almost more badly than she does, the chance to control something, to use his body as a weapon again, to fight off his helplessness by fighting an equal opponent. Sandy feels the same ache in her chest, and his keen, hungry grin resonates with something feral inside her. “You better bring your A-game, then, and no excuses. I don’t want to have to go easy on you.” The grin sharpens to a knife-edge, perfect for slashing. “I’ll give you something to _not_ -think about.”

It must sound like a threat to the others, inexperienced in the ways of cathartic violence, but Sandy knows that it’s a meant as a kindness. Knows that Monkey understands, in a way that even Tripitaka doesn’t, how beautifully brutality can help to quiet the maelstrom in her head. He’s been where she is, at least some small part of it. He’s had to work through his past pain just like she will.

She touches his arm, feels the muscle jump under her fingertips, then looks up at him. Feels the tears start to sting behind her eyes again; it takes more effort than she cares to admit to drive them back down.

“Thank you, Monkey,” she whispers.

Too low for the others to hear, but she means it. Deeply, truly, and for more reasons than she’ll ever be able to count.

Monkey, of course, only grunts and cuffs her shoulder.

And then, silence.

In the room, if not inside her head. Nobody willing to speak any more, and each for their own — entirely different — reasons.

Tripitaka, keeping an uncharacteristic distance from everyone, the way she often tries to do when Sandy and Monkey spend time together. She seems unwilling to get close, and Sandy can’t tell whether she feels it would be an intrusion on their moment or whether she’s worried she won’t be able to understand the things they talk about and the things they do. She may not be a monk in truth but she has the tender heart of one, and a soft, fragile soul; it is unfathomable to her, the way they seek solace in sparring with each other, the way they find their peace in violence.

Sandy wants to help her understand, wants to share this with her as she has shared everything else. Pieces of her world feel incomplete when Tripitaka is not a part of them, and this is no different. But at the same time she doesn’t want her to have to understand the dark paths that lead to such a place. She wants to shield her from the darker meaning behind the blows, spare her the suffering that comes with knowing, with having monsters inside, instincts and urges that need to be held down and tamed. A human, she knows, whether a monk or not, will never understand the things a god must do to survive.

Monkey, unlike Tripitaka, doesn’t speak because he doesn’t need to. No reason to; it’s just that simple. He’s said what he wanted to say, and he won’t say anything more when the others are there. He’ll save it for later, for when it’s just the two of them, their feelings safely hidden behind fists and feet.

And as for Pigsy...

Sandy shuts her eyes, overwhelmed by a sudden swell of vertigo.

She can’t look at him. Can’t even think about looking at him.

She breathes through her nose, feels the room lurch, tries to speak—

And finds that she has nothing to say.

She squeezes Monkey’s arm, feeble but firm, and crosses back to Tripitaka’s side. It takes every ounce of self-respect she has not to throw herself into her arms and start weeping again, wailing like the child she both does and doesn’t remember. She wants to, so desperately it hurts a little, but they’re not finished yet and she is so worried that Tripitaka will insist that they wait even longer if she thinks she’s getting weaker.

She couldn’t bear that. Couldn’t bear to leave the room knowing she’ll eventually have to come back and start all over again. If they are to end this, this dark piece of her past that is also Pigsy’s, it has to be here and now.

She tries to hold on to the part of her that shared a moment with Monkey, the part that will, if she’s lucky, draw a measure of comfort in sparring with him later. The part of her that draws strength from honesty, simplicity in speaking the truth, open and plain.

Sitting down, swallowing compulsively, she whispers, “Tripitaka?”

A smile, delicate and fragile as water; it helps her to float. “I’m right here.”

Sandy nods. Doesn’t bury herself in her robes. Says, instead, “I feel very small.”

“I know.” Tripitaka doesn’t reach for her, doesn’t try to touch her. Sandy wonders if she feels the same pull of pain, like even a moment of contact shared between them would bring tears upon endless tears. “But I’m here, and so are you.”

Sandy hugs her knees to her chest, presses her forehead against the jutting bones. Takes a deep, slow breath, and holds it until the heady thrum of magic announces the Shaman’s return.

“Are you ready,” he asks, without preamble or hesitation, “to continue?”

Sandy doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t want to see her tired, pain-streaked face reflected in his demon’s eyes. Doesn’t want to look closer and see the same pain etched on his face as well.

“No,” she says, weary but honest. “But I want to anyway.”

And she lifts her heavy, aching head, to find him smiling.

“You are a credit to your kind,” he says, so low she’s almost convinced she’s imagined it. And then, as the air grows cold around them, he goes on, as if he never spoke at all, “Very well, then: let us begin again.”

And so, exhausted and hurting and utterly broken, they do.

**

_The effect was instantaneous._

_Pigsy felt the rush of magic like a physical blow a burst of power and pain that exploded out from the needle at its point of contact with Sandy’s god-blood. It threw him backwards like a concussive blast, like it could somehow sense that he was a threat; he saw stars explode behind his eyes, and before he could fully grasp what was happening he was flat on his back watching the ceiling swerve._

_Winded. Dazed. All the strength felt like it had fled from his limbs._

_He watched, vision dim and blurring, as the Druid lurched back up to his feet, fumbling half-blind for balance. Face deathly pale, hair dishevelled, blood trickling from his nose, he looked a mess. Pigsy had only known him a short time, but he could tell that was uncharacteristic._

_Not sparing Pigsy so much as a glance, he staggered over to the chair, bracing what looked like his full weight on the damn thing. He glared down at Sandy’s empty, expressionless face, his eyes wide and half-feral, seething with such hate that Pigsy felt faint just to look at it._

_“You arrogant, defiant little wretch—”_

_His voice broke, strain and weakness making it tremble. He held up a hand, balled into a white-knuckled fist, and the surface of his skin crackled with power; even from his distance, Pigsy could feel it, the air flaring unbearably hot and then as cold as ice. He shivered at the sight, the sensation, inching backwards as far as the little chamber would allow, and watched the focus darken the Druid’s face, catching the heat of his anger, his hatred._

_The burst of magic lasted only a moment, a flashfire that burned itself out almost instantly, but apparently that was enough._

_The Druid slumped back, swaying like he’d been struck a dizzying blow, or possibly like he’d had too much to drink. His eyes were unfocused, the hate and the violence gone when he looked back at Pigsy, and when he spoke it was with such ragged, bone-deep exhaustion that the words came out slurred and almost incoherent._

_“It is futile,” he said, blinking like a punch-drunk boxer. “There is nothing left.”_

_Pigsy didn’t understand._

_“What do you mean?” he asked, feeling his stomach swirl. “The gods’ language, or whatever it was you were trying to pull out of her head?”_

_The Druid growled his affirmation. “The language, and everything else as well.” He paused, massaging his temples; Pigsy didn’t want to imagine how badly his head must be pounding right now. “She has torn her mind to shreds in her efforts to resist me. There is nothing left in her.” He sighed, but there was no sympathy or compassion to the sound, only disgust and spite. “Give a child a weapon, and it will always inflict more harm on itself than anyone else.”_

_Pigsy lurched up onto his feet. He felt like he’d been punched too, in the gut and in the face. Swaying, feeling almost as blind and dizzy as the Druid looked, he made his way over to the chair as well, squinting down into Sandy’s face for any signs of life._

_Her chest was still moving, rising and falling with the perfect rhythm of someone in a deep sleep. Still breathing, though, and that meant she was still alive; the relief made his blood run cold. He watcher her for a short while, drawing comfort from the slow, steady motion, clinging desperately to hope._

_“She’s still breathing,” he said out loud. “Surely that means—”_

_“It means nothing,” the Druid snapped, cutting him off sharply. He had already turned away by now, as though dismissing the whole affair as lost. “With her mind in pieces, she is little more than a husk. An empty shell, if you will. Her body will wither and waste away until it dies from starvation or neglect. Best to simply put the creature out of its misery and be done with it.”_

_“She could wake up,” Pigsy managed hoarsely. “She’s a god. W— they heal. With a little time and a little care, maybe she’ll be able to...”_

_“Believe that if you wish,” the Druid said, waving a careless hand. “Your inevitable disappointment is of no concern to me.”_

_So saying, he turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him like it was to blame for everything that had happened._

_Left alone with the horrifying silence — all the louder for coming in the wake of so much endless screaming — Pigsy shook off his paralysis and set to work loosening the straps and buckles holding the girl down. If the pressure was still causing her distress, there was no sign of it now; for the first time since he’d hauled her out of the tavern and Monica’s protective arms, her face was smooth and lineless, her expression blank, even serene. Like she’d found a measure of peace, at last, in being emptied._

_The thought sickened him. He threw it aside with the straps._

_With nothing to hold her in place, she fell out of the chair the moment she was loose. Her body struck the ground hard, the impact reverberating like a death-knell, but she showed no sign of having felt it at all. Her breathing was as even as it had been a moment ago, wholly unaffected by the spill; it was like nothing had happened at all. Pigsy felt his heart stutter; he rolled her over gently, onto her back, and tried to find some spark of life in her face._

_Nothing._

_He shook her, as carefully as he could, calling her name in a cracked, devastated voice. No response, no shift in her breathing, no movement of any kind. He had never seen anyone so still, so thoroughly hollowed out._

_“Sandy?” It came out trembling, like a sob. “Can you hear me?”_

_If she did, she showed no sign of it. She didn’t respond to his voice or her name, to the way he shook her, even to the moment of desperation, horror-stricken and terrified, when he reared back to strike her._

_He stopped himself before it could happen, his clenched fist suspended on the air, as futile and helpless as the rest of him, but her face — always so quick to show her fear when he did something that showed off his bulk or his strength — remained a dead, vacant void._

_“Please!” he cried. “At least give me a chance to say I’m sorry!”_

_But she cared no more for his apologies than she did for his trembling fist._

*

_Locke, predictably, was not pleased._

_“What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?” she shrieked, storming into the chamber like a rain-heavy cloud about to burst._

_Pigsy didn’t look up. Head bowed over the tiny, motionless body, he cradled her in his arms and wept. “She’s gone.”_

_“She bloody will be!” No sympathy, no compassion, nothing; for all her unwillingness to sully her own hands, it seemed that she and the Druid were cut from the same calloused cloth. “What in the world were you thinking, you daft thing? All that hard work, keeping that little abomination safely squirrelled away, and the second we get our payday you go and botch it all up by developing a conscience?”_

_Pigsy didn’t bother to point out that he’d always had a conscience, that he’d just developed a talent for keeping it hidden. He didn’t have the strength to make this into an argument; he didn’t have the strength to do much of anything but cry. His heart was aching, his body shaking, and he could not lift his head._

_“She’s a child,” he whispered, mostly to himself; he knew better than to expect that Locke would change her ways or her feelings now. “Practically a baby. He strapped her down and made her helpless, invaded her mind, her thoughts. He tried to tear the poor girl apart, and you expected me to just sit there and let it happen?”_

_“No,” she said tartly. “I expected you to bloody well help him.”_

_He shook his head, holding Sandy’s cold, unresponsive body a little tighter, like he could shield her from the cruel words and the crueller feelings behind them._

_“I couldn’t,” he rasped, still barely audible. “I couldn’t just let him do that to her. Not without giving her a fighting chance. A chance to defend herself, at least.”_

_“And a fat lot of bloody good it did you both,” Locke remarked. “You damn soft-hearted fool. Getting all close and sweet with the little whelp, like you didn’t know it was always going to end up like this. You’ve sent enough of their kind off to that wretched place by now. How many of them have you ever seen come back?”_

_“That’s not...” He swallowed. “It’s different.”_

_“No it’s not.” Still cold, still flat, nothing but disgust in her voice and her eyes. “It’s not bloody different just because you saw it first-hand this time.”_

_“No,” Pigsy said, very softly. “It’s different because she’s a child.”_

_“Not any more.” Locke crouched in front of him, eyes hard as steel. “Now, thanks to you, she’s a bleeding vegetable.”_

_“Don’t.” His breath caught, rattling in his chest. “Don’t say that.”_

_“It’s done,” she snapped, growing sharp again. “It’s over. Done and botched and damn near ruined. You’re lucky one of us is still good at their job, because if I hadn’t done a whole lot of quick talking we wouldn’t even have our coin-purses filled.”_

_Her eyes darkened at that, and he flinched back in spite of himself; it was no surprise by now that her only interest was in how well she was paid, but now wasn’t the time to be reminded of it._

_“Really?” he said flatly. “You really—”_

_“I bloody did.” Still ranting, oblivious to the quiet rage in his voice. “He would’ve taken back my pay, you know. If I hadn’t convinced him it was in his best interest to keep us quiet about his part in all this.” And finally her expression softened, a crude, sly smile tugging at her lips. “Wouldn’t want the big boss-man finding out how he got bested by a little god-whelp, now, would he?”_

_Pigsy shook his head. He couldn’t bear to hear another word._

_“That’s all you care about,” he said, numb and empty. “He ripped her mind to shreds, made her a living corpse, and all you care about is keeping your coin-purse heavy and the strings pulled tight?”_

_“Damn right.” She hadn’t even spared Sandy a glance, he noticed. “We both knew what was going to happen here, so don’t act like this is news just because it’s not the fairy-tale ending you’d imagined in your head.”_

_“I’m not…” He trailed off, frustrated. “Dammit, Locke.”_

_“Don’t you put this on me, my boy.” Perhaps she wasn’t completely without sympathy, but it was hard to remember that when she was looking at him like he was the monster in all of this. “You knew as well as I did that she’d be dead or worse by the time she got out of here. Call me heartless all you like, sweetness, but at least I’m not stupid. You’re the one playing pretend and mooning over things you knew would never happen.”_

_He sighed. There wasn’t much he could say to argue with that, and even if he wanted to, he no longer possessed the strength to try._

_“I just...” He held the body a little tighter, but couldn’t look at it. “I just wanted to do right by her.”_

_“And look where all that mushy sentimentality got you.” Locke’s voice grew harder again, eyes glinting like dying embers. “You botched it good and proper, my boy, and you should thank your lucky stars that you’re so damn pretty. A lesser man would’ve been out on his ear for less than this, make no mistake.”_

_A part of him, small and self-flagellating, almost wished she’d do it. Kick him out, throw him onto the streets, leave him with no choice but to fend for himself, to finally make good on all the wretched choices he’d made._

_A bigger part, the part that still couldn’t bring itself to give up the warmth and protection of a demon’s bed, nodded its acquiescence._

_“I know.” He bent back over Sandy’s body, pressing his ear to her chest, finding the shallow rhythm of her heartbeat. It gave him no comfort at all. “You don’t need to tell me how much harm I’ve done.”_

_“Good.” Locke stood at last, towering over him like the monstrous tyrant she was. “Now, get up on your feet and finish the job.”_

_Getting onto his feet was hard enough. His whole body felt like water — fitting, he thought, gazing brokenly down at the bundle in his arms — and he couldn’t get his legs to stay solid under him. He’d sooner hit the floor than have to lean on Locke for support, and he very nearly did. He could hardly see, and even though she weighed practically nothing, still somehow Sandy felt like a leaden weight in his arms._

_“The job’s finished,” he said hollowly. “Your man said she’s useless now.”_

_“Not my man, love.” She said it with a curled lip, and for the first time Pigsy found himself wondering if she found the Druid as unsettling as he did. “And not finished yet, either.”_

_Pigsy’s heart sank. “Don’t.”_

_“Come, now, love. Didn’t I teach you better than to shut the door before tying up all the loose ends?” She didn’t soften, not in any meaningful way, but there was a sad sort of fondness in her now, and when she finally forced herself to look down at Sandy her eyes burned with something almost like pity. “Make it quick if you can, eh? Poor thing’s suffered enough. But get it done.”_

_“I...” He glanced down again, taking in the girl’s pale, empty face, but only for a second; his vision swam, and he had to look away or be violently sick. “I can’t. Not that. Not after... dammit, you can’t ask me to—”_

_“I’m not asking you. I’m bloody telling you.” And then, impossibly, she did soften, her expression clashing violently with her words, her intent. “Look, love. You’ll be doing her a mercy. Doing us one as well, but that’s beside the point. Whatever you two did to her, you’ve left her dead inside. Nothing left for you to try and save, nothing left worth protecting or crying over, so why don’t you save yourself the misery and stop that rubbish now? Stop deluding yourself, suck it up, and put the poor wretched creature out of its misery. You owe it that much.”_

_He didn’t answer, didn’t say anything at all for a long, long time. He wasn’t sure he could speak, and he certainly wasn’t sure he trusted himself to say the things he so desperately wanted to. He was already on thin ice with her, one bad word away from getting kicked out onto the streets, and one bad thought away from wanting to be._

_He looked her in the eye, searching the icy depths for some trace of the woman he had to believe he cared for. Found nothing there but hunger and determination, the need to do what had to be done — what she believed had to be done — and damn the rest to hell. She’d been paid, and got another pesky god taken off her hands; that was as far as she’d ever think of it. It sickened him, frightened him, made him angry beyond words._

_“This what’s going to happen to me?” he asked, after a long seething moment. He didn’t quite match her calculated coldness, but he did the best he could with what little he had. “The day you get bored with me, or the day I let you down one time too many? You’ll just toss me out the nearest window, mutter some half-hearted prayer, and write me out of the narrative?”_

_She stared at him, head cocked to one side, like she was trying to figure out whether or not he’d lost his mind. Most likely had, he conceded, but she didn’t need to know that._

_“Well, of course it is,” she said at last. So simple, so damn matter-of-fact. “What the bloody hell did you expect? Did you really expect me to lie around moping for a week?”_

_“A minute might be nice.” She wasn’t wrong, he supposed: he should have known better than to expect even that. “I knew you were heartless, but this... how am I supposed to live with myself after this?”_

_She shrugged, only the faintest trace of affection colouring her carelessness. If he walked away now, disappeared into the great beyond with the brain-dead child in his arms, she wouldn’t try to stop him. Would shed a tear, maybe, in a moment of nostalgia, and then cast his memory aside along with everything else. He could see it in her eyes, in her posture, in every last part of the face and body he knew so intimately. Just one more disappointment, one more thing he couldn’t do right. She’d wash her hands of him and move on to the next willing dupe, never bothering to think of him again._

_And he was so damn tempted to let it happen._

_But oh, what good would it do?_

_If this nightmarish mishap had taught him anything — if he was even capable of learning new things at this point in his worthless life, after so much time and so little growth — it was that ‘good’ wasn’t something he’d ever likely be capable of. Kindness, compassion, the right thing... whatever shape it took, whatever meaning it held, every time he tried he only made it worse._

_If he’d let the Druid have his way, stood back and blindly obeyed like a good little lackey, who knew how things might have turned out? A little psychic trauma, a scar or two in her brain, maybe some emotional damage, but at least she would have survived._

_Now, thanks to his failed attempts at helping her, she’d become the living dead. A vegetable, as Locke had so crudely called her. A hollowed-out husk of a brain-dead god who would likely never wake._

_Because he had tried, for once in his wasted life, to do good._

_Watching him, perhaps hearing some part of those soul-shattering thoughts, Locke sighed and touched his hand. A moment’s contact, nothing more than that, but warm and kind enough that he almost remembered why he stuck around._

_“It’s what you are, love,” she said, not without sympathy. “Thought you’d made peace with it years ago.”_

_Pigsy hugged Sandy close to his chest, rocked her gently. No response, not even a shift in her breathing. But by now he’d learned better than to hope for one._

_“I thought so too,” he said, so soft he might as well have been speaking to the girl rather than the demon. “But I guess, like her, there’s still a little bit left in me that just refuses to die.”_

_Locke chuckled, humourless and still skirting the edges of compassion. She watched him for another moment, then leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. The contact lingered, too tender for what it was, and when she pulled back she surprised him by ducking her head and pressing another kiss — no less warm — to Sandy’s death-cold forehead._

_For his sake, he was sure, just to soften the blow. But still, the gesture touched him in ways he couldn’t put into words._

_“Two birds,” she said, as she straightened and turned away. “One stone. Make it a clean one, eh? For both of you.”_

_And then she was gone, leaving Pigsy alone with the weight in his arms, so much heavier than it was a moment ago._

*

_It was for the best._

_He knew that, deep down in his dirt-soaked heart. He knew that Locke was right, that there was nothing to be done now. Nothing he or anyone else could do but let her go kindly and swiftly, let her find the peace in death that had so eluded her in life._

_He knew that the Druid spoke with as much honesty as he could. If he’d believed there was anything worth saving in the girl, he would have tried a thousand times; a newborn god was too damn valuable to throw away like last week’s rubbish if there was even a glimmer of something salvageable. That he’d given up so willingly — even eagerly — said that he believed with all of himself that there was nothing left, that her mind really had been torn to pieces, useless and dead in everything but name._

_Pigsy knew and understood this, even if he didn’t want to believe it. Every instinct in him, every fibre of compassion he possessed, said that it was the kindest thing, the quickest and cleanest end to a short and tragic life filled with more pain than he would probably ever see._

_Give it up. Let her go, then crawl back home and make peace with the choices he’d made, the life he lived, the person he’d become, the steep, terrible price for protecting himself from a life like hers._

_The right thing, the best thing for everyone. The good thing._

_But he couldn’t do it._

_He had crossed so many moral lines in his life, drawn and erased and redrawn them so many times he could barely remember where they were supposed to be or why they were there in the first place. Was it wrong to capture and imprison a god if it made human lives better? Was it wrong to turn a blind eye to Locke’s worst deeds if he never saw their consequences?_

_He didn’t know any more. He didn’t let himself think about it._

_But this he knew. In his deepest, darkest places, the parts of him that couldn’t deny where they came from, he knew that he couldn’t do it. He could not turn around and give up for dead the first new god he’d seen since the fall of the old ones. Right or wrong, he could not snuff out forever the first warm light he’d seen and felt in centuries._

_So he didn’t._

_It wasn’t the first time he’d defied Locke’s orders. He’d let a few marks escape here and there, swearing to the heavens that he hadn’t been able to find them, had snuck extra rations to starving prisoners or slipped a warning under the door of a soon-to-be-raided home. He did what he could, small and useless as it was, but this was the first time the decision weighed as much as the body._

_He waited until the middle of the night, until the streets were as empty as they ever got and the lights had faded in almost every window. There was no such thing as complete cover of darkness, even in a village as small as Palawa, but there were always hours where you’d have to be pretty damn unlucky to get caught. Might not be ideal, but it was the best he could hope for._

_The lights were out in the tavern, too, but not in the bedroom above. A candle-flame flickering in the window told him everything he needed to know, and the sight of it turned his spine and his nerves to water._

_It felt like a lifetime before she came to the door. A lifetime of standing there feeling exposed and vulnerable, the wind at his neck and the weight in his arms growing heavier._

_And then the door creaked opened, a lifeline and a threat all at once, and there she stood: Monica, a frying pan in one hand and a candle in the other, glaring death at anyone fool-headed enough come knocking at midnight._

_“Do you have any idea what time—” And then her eyes found his in the gloomy light, and she raised the pan even higher. “You.”_

_Without a word, Pigsy held out the bundle in his arms._

_Swaddled and smothered, safely out of sight, Monica wouldn’t be able to see the body, but she was smart enough to figure it out. Smart enough to know, even without seeing it, that there was only one reason why Locke’s right-hand man would show up on her doorstep in the dead of night, secretive and sheepish and alone._

_He stood there like that for a moment, hoping she would show mercy for Sandy’s sake if not for his own. Then, when she didn’t seem willing to speak or move, he sighed and said, as soft and hopeful as he could, “You mind if I come in?”_

_“I do bloody mind, yeah.” She didn’t give him a thrashing, though, so he considered it a minor victory. She held his gaze for another moment or two, then finally sighed and opened the door a crack wider. “Fine. Get a shift on.”_

_Pigsy’s whole body went weak with relief._

_Inside, warm and at least mostly safe, he laid Sandy’s body down on the kitchen table. She hadn’t shown any signs of life in the hours since the incident. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t shifted or made a sound, and the rhythm of her breathing was as stubbornly shallow now as it was before. Pigsy wasn’t the kind of god who’d give up hope when there was still a sliver of it yet to be found, but even his optimism was reaching its breaking point by now. Looking down at her, he wanted more than anything to just fall to his knees and weep._

_Not in front of Monica, though. She couldn’t know what he knew, couldn’t even suspect it. Not if he wanted her to do right by the girl he’d failed so thoroughly._

_She shoved him aside the instant she caught sight of Sandy’s face, possessed by such a fierce protectiveness that she didn’t even seem to realise she was a gnat swatting at a mountain. Pigsy let it happen, let his legs buckle a little as she pushed past him, letting her imagine herself more intimidating than she was. After everything he’d seen and done in the last few days, it was a balm to see a breed of ferocity that came from love and not spite._

_“Sandy girl!” She brushed back the tangles of her hair, cupped her pale, expressionless face with reverence. “Can you hear me?”_

_Pigsy wet his lips, tried to ignore the sting behind his eyes. “She can’t,” he said, so quiet he almost hoped the human wouldn’t hear any better than the god._

_Monica’s shoulders tightened, but she paid him no mind. She pressed a hand to the girl’s neck, checking for a pulse, then pulled back her eyelids and peered deep into her sightless eyes._

_“What the bloody hell did you idiots do to her?” she demanded, still not glancing his way. “She looks like the living dead.”_

_True enough, Pigsy thought, but he bit his tongue and willed himself not to say so._

_“She’s been through a lot,” he said instead, and prayed she would hear enough of his pain not to press for further details. “And she’s, uh... she’s in in a pretty bad way. Locke wanted me to... um...”_

_Monica bared her teeth; the sound that came out of her was almost inhuman. “Dispose of her?”_

_He flinched, ducking his head. Shame, grief, pain... so many horrible feelings clogging his chest, it was a miracle his heart could still beat. “Something like that, yeah.”_

_“Not on my watch,” Monica snapped. Then, at long last, she did look up, eyes narrowed shrewdly as she studied his face. “She have any idea you’re here?”_

_“No. And I’d like it to stay that way. So if you could... that is, uh...”_

_“Right.” She sighed, still touching Sandy’s unresponsive face. “She won’t hear a thing from me. Don’t you worry.”_

_This time, when his knees buckled, it wasn’t just for show. “Thanks, Monica.”_

_“Yeah.” Her expression carried maybe a dozen different emotions. Rage, frustration, the faintest hint of sympathy, and such a deep ferocious love for the child on the table that all the rest seemed to fade into nothing. “Well, suppose I do owe you for bringing her back in one piece. And going behind Her Majesty’s back to do it...” She whistled. “Takes guts, that does.”_

_For a long, devastating moment, Pigsy thought about telling her everything. He wanted to scream, to sob, to beg for forgiveness, wanted to shake her and shout ‘she’s not in one piece, you fool!’ until she saw the truth for what it was. He wanted so badly to share his grief with someone else, someone who understood and felt the same way, someone who really was good._

_He wanted her to see him, to forgive him. Wanted her to understand what had driven him here. What he’d seen, what he’d done, what had happened, every terrible moment that had led to this. He wanted to ask her to protect him as well, to find some other little cupboard to hide him in, a backwards little corner in a backwards little tavern where Locke wouldn’t even think of searching for him. Wouldn’t be much of a life, true, but at least he would be free. At least he’d be able to—_

_No._

_Stupid. Idealistic. Foolish. And even if it wasn’t, he couldn’t bear the thought of putting Monica or Sandy through any more trouble than he already had._

_He shoved the thoughts aside. Crushed the feelings into nothing, tossed them into an empty corner of his heart, and hoped they would rot themselves away._

_“It’s pretty bad,” he said to Monica. “What happened to her. She’s...”_

_He looked down, wanting nothing more than to shove Monica’s hands away and touch Sandy’s face himself, to look down into her blind, empty eyes and tell her again how sorry he was, how desperate to make amends, how he would turn the world upside-down if he thought for a moment it would help. His fingertips flexed, on the brink of reaching out—_

_And without so much as a moment’s hesitation, Monica slapped him._

_“You lay so much as a finger on that girl,” she said, “and I’ll kill you.”_

_Unironic, without so much as a trace of fear. She might as well have been facing one of her drunken patrons, for all that she acknowledged his power. Pigsy was grateful for that, so much that he almost smiled._

_“Right,” he said, allowing a shamefaced flush to touch his face. Not difficult, given the situation. “Sorry.”_

_Monica grunted her acknowledgement but didn’t move away. “You’re lucky I’m even letting you stay in the same bloody room,” she grumbled. “And time’s running short on that, too. So if you’ve got anything else to say, you’d better say it quick.”_

_“I don’t,” he said hastily. “I’m serious. I just want to try to make it right, for both of you.”_

_“Too late for that, don’t you think?” She pushed herself away from the table, away from Sandy, and shoved him in the chest, driving him backwards with the unexpected force of it. “You’re way past making this right, sunshine, whatever change of heart you might be having. Kidnap a child in the middle of the night, bring her back half a week later, half-dead, and you expect everything to be all roses and kittens again?”_

_“No.” He let his body go limp, let her shove him again and again, let her threaten him with her frying pan and whatever sharp objects she had lying around, let her do whatever she liked. “I don’t expect anything, Monica. I just want you to keep her hidden. Take care of her, if there’s anything left to take care of. Maybe try to...” He coughed, feeling queasy. “...wake her.”_

_Well. It was a damn sight kinder than ‘bring her back to life’._

_He couldn’t say that, couldn’t tell her the truth: that the child he’d brought back to her was completely brain-dead. Right or wrong, he couldn’t bring himself to snuff out the last flickering ember of hope he still saw in Monica’s eyes. Couldn’t doom her to share his fate._

_Her eyes narrowed when she looked at him, though, like maybe she could hear something hidden behind the words, the hesitation, something he wouldn’t or couldn’t say. For a moment or two, she seemed almost ready to threaten him again, but the violence bled out of her before she could act on it, and she turned back to the table with a sigh._

_“How bad?” she asked quietly. “What you and your little friends did. How much ‘care’ is this poor kid going to need to get over what you did to her?”_

_A difficult, thorny question, that, and one Pigsy couldn’t immediately answer. One he didn’t want to answer, either. Monica couldn’t know there was practically no hope of the girl ever waking; one of them needed to keep faith alive, one of them needed to hold on to what little light there was in this wretched mess of a world._

_“She’s tough,” he said, evasive but not really dishonest. “A little time and a little patience, and I bet she won’t remember a thing.”_

_Monica nodded, tight-lipped. She bent over the body again, leaned in to whisper something into Sandy’s ear, a hushed murmur that Pigsy couldn’t make out. He could only catch the pitch and rhythm of her voice as she spoke, low and sharp and very dangerous._

_“You’d better hope she doesn’t,” she said to him, when she straightened back up. She wasn’t looking him in the eye, but he could feel the heat of her glare just the same. “Because if I was her and I remembered? I’d hunt you down to the ends of the earth.”_

_Pigsy jolted, heart suddenly hammering in his chest, a cracked dam wall threatening to burst at the seams._

_In all his fretting about the right thing, the wrong thing, about good or bad or all the rest, he’d never stopped to think about that. Had never once considered the repercussions if she did wake, if she defied the odds and her condition and survived long enough to reach maturity, to grow into her powers and become the god they’d all been so sure would die in that wretched chair. It was a nightmare of a question, what kind of creature would rise up from that sort of damage, from the fear and the pain, from the memory of—_

_He shuddered, backing away from the table, step by nervous step._

_Maybe it was for the best, he thought, if it really did end like this._

**

This time, when Sandy wakes, it takes no time at all to reorient herself.

She’s reeling, slightly groggy, but there is no pain, no disorientation. None of the haziness or confusion that comes with new memories, with feeling her younger self pressing against the walls of her mind, her new-old experiences pulling themselves out of the borrowed ones. She’s silent now, the younger her, and the older one doesn’t know how to feel.

“Don’t remember this either,” she mumbles, holding her head in her hands.

“You were unconscious,” the Shaman points out, impatient but not unkind. “Of course you don’t remember.”

She blinks a few times, sits up a little straighter. “Then why...?”

“This was for my benefit, not yours.” He breathes in slowly, lets it out in a tired, jagged-sounding sigh. Sandy lifts her head to find him gesturing vaguely at nothing in particular. “I now know the full extent of the damage to your mind, its cause, its effect. Once the last of your memories is in place, I believe we may try again to repair it.”

Sandy closes her eyes, pushes the heels of her hands into her temples, harder and harder. Pigsy’s memories are fading, and his emotions along with them; she feels distanced from the moment already, like her mind is still unconscious, still fractured and lost. Like she’s not—

“Sandy.” Tripitaka, slim fingers circling her wrists and dragging her hands away from her face. “Don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Mm. Sorry.” She breathes steadily for a moment, focuses on the callouses on Tripitaka’s thumbs, the contact against her wrists, the gentle fluidity of motion, comforting, warm. “Just trying to remember. His, not mine. I know that. But I think he... I remember he thought...”

“He didn’t mean it,” Tripitaka says, with quiet urgency. “What he thought.”

And now Sandy does remember. In the moment before it fades, she hears it again, an echo of an echo of someone else’s fear: _maybe it’s for the best..._

“He thought it,” she rasps. “That makes it true.” She pulls away, firm but not aggressive, and wraps her arms around herself. “Think anything for long enough, eventually it becomes true. Miracles can happen inside your head.”

“Poetic,” the Shaman quips. “And not wholly inaccurate.”

Across the room, Pigsy makes a shaky, sorrowful sound. Just the thought of looking up and meeting his gaze makes Sandy feel a burst of anger so violent it scares her, so she keeps her head down and her eyes fixed on the ground. Safe, still, the carpet doesn’t think or feel or try to speak, and looking at it helps her to keep her own thoughts quiet, her own speech steady.

“You thought it,” she says to him. “You wanted me to die like that.”

Perhaps he has achieved some small measure of courage in the intervening years, because even with everyone’s attention locked on him, Pigsy does not balk or hide from the truth.

“Yeah.” Quiet, but honest. Sandy doesn’t know why it balms a little of the pain, but it does; perhaps because honesty is such a rare gift from him. “But only for a second. I imagined what you might have grown up into, something twisted and violent and dangerous. I imagined you coming for me in the dead of night, hungry for vengeance. I was a great big bloody coward and I just... I wanted...”

He doesn’t finish. Doesn’t have to. Tripitaka makes a broken, strangled sound, and lurches up onto her feet. Sandy lifts her head, watches as she paces the room, as she stops on the other side, as far away from all of them as she can get, and turns away, touching her forehead to the stone wall and sobbing softly.

Sandy, still too numb to feel that much just yet, says to Pigsy, “You wanted me dead, but you didn’t want to have to do it yourself.”

“Something like that.” The honesty is not so balming this time around; when Sandy dares to look at him she finds him facing the Shaman with tear-damp eyes. “Are you done with me? Can I go?”

Still a coward, apparently.

Sandy isn’t surprised. She’s not even really disappointed. She’s too tired to feel much of anything at all, and the plain truth is that she doesn’t want to face him any more than he wants to have to face her.

“Your memories are no longer needed,” the Shaman informs him with a careless shrug, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Yeah.” He looks around the room, eyes a little wild, like a trapped, frightened animal; Sandy is intimately acquainted with that look, and that feeling. “I should leave, right? I should leave you lot to your... to yourselves. You’re not going to... I mean, you won’t want me around. Right?”

Sandy ignores his babbling. There’s something else tugging at the corner of her mind now, a rippling wave of thought breaking against the edge of her memory, something she can’t quite reach but which feels dreadfully important.

She closes her eyes again, this time to try and block out the noise from the room, Pigsy’s self-pitying babble and Tripitaka’s quiet tears, the deafening sound of Monkey and Locke breathing on the far side of the room. Everything feels like it’s piercing her, like it’s trying to split her open and sever her nerves, and she can’t think through it, can’t concentrate.

It doesn’t hit her, that elusive _something_ , until after Pigsy has gotten to his feet, until he’s almost at the door, half a step away from walking out and leaving her alone with his fading memories of—

“Wait!”

She jerks to her feet, a cry wrenching out of her to stop him in his tracks; looking up, she finds him staring at her like she’s just leaped out from the grave.

She feels that way herself, a little bit, and the realisation churns through her like a storm at sea.

“What is it?” he asks, sounding a little frightened. “Because I don’t know anything I can say that—”

“No.” Sandy swallows. “Not that. You...” She takes a deep breath, feels out the thought, pokes gingerly at the importance of it. “You took me back. To the tavern. To... to Monica.”

He frowns, unmoving but with one hand still on the door.

“Yeah, I did.” He looks a little ashamed, but there’s no point in him trying to deny what they’ve all seen for themselves. “She’d looked after you before. She was the only one I could trust, the only one I could think of who could...” Their eyes lock for the first time, for less than a fraction of a second, and it’s difficult to say for sure, which of them is more wounded. “She was the only one who could take care of you.”

“Yes. She lets the word settle in the space between her thoughts, feels the truth of it stretching, distorting inside of her. “But she _didn’t_.”

That gets everyone else’s attention. Pigsy spins on his heels, his departure all but forgotten, and Tripitaka lifts her head from the wall, face tear-streaked but curious, mouth half-open.

“Sandy...?”

Sandy looks at her. Grounds herself in her dark, beautiful eyes, her soft-but-sober expression, in the way her monk’s robes catch the motion of the air.

“She didn’t,” she says again. Slowly now, feeling it out as she says it. “She can’t have. If she had, I would have... I wouldn’t be what I am. I’d remember it. Even just a little piece of it. I’d remember being there, being with... I’d remember _her_.” And as she speaks, she tries. With everything she has, everything she is, she tries, because she wants so desperately to believe it’s true. “But I don’t. Don’t remember her, don’t remember the tavern. Don’t remember anything. Only myself, alone. Always, forever. My whole life. _Alone_.”

The room fills with silence, then, while the others absorb this. Sandy keeps thinking, keeps trying to press on her fractured memory, to find some trace of Monica or the tavern, of having a home and a family after the one that threw her away. A fire, a warm blanket, anything that might suggest she spent time with someone who cared.

But there’s nothing there.

She remembers being cold. Remembers being alone. Remembers dripping water, the damp stone of the sewer. Remembers starving, shivering, struggling to survive. Remembers the creature she became, a scrawny wreck of a god hiding underneath the town because she didn’t know any better. Remembers headaches and holes inside of her, horror and hurt and hate. But no matter how hard she tries, how desperately she searches, she cannot remember a single shred of human kindness.

She lifts her head to find Tripitaka crouched in front of her, frowning, holding out a trembling, uneasy hand. “Sandy?”

Sandy sighs. “I’m not lost, Tripitaka. Just trying to remember.”

“Lately, those seem to be the same thing.” She touches her face, tender but a little tentative; the contact makes Sandy’s skin itch, but she allows it. “Sandy, can you really be sure? Maybe it’s not...” A vague, helpless gesture, then she sighs and tries again. “Maybe we just haven’t filled in that part of your memory yet. I mean, you’re still...”

“Broken?” She smiles sadly, almost relishing the way it makes Tripitaka flinch. “Yes, that’s true. There are many things I still don’t know about myself, moments that are still lost or hazy. But not this. Tripitaka, this is the one thing I do know. The one thing I have always, always known. Even when I knew nothing of myself or what I was, even when I could barely recall my own name, still I knew this: I have never been ‘taken care of’. Not by Monica, not by anyone. Not since the day my father left me to die by the roadside. If I had, even for a very short time, I wouldn’t have become what I did.”

Tripitaka flinches slightly at that, like she wants to argue but knows she can’t. She’s seen the person Sandy became, to say nothing of her forced exposure to the child she was before. Even she, with all her boundless optimism, cannot shield herself from the inevitability of it, the hard, painful truth.

“I...” She sighs, leaning in again, closer and closer until their foreheads touch. Contact and connection, a reminder to them both that even the hardest of truths can change. “Yeah. Okay.”

Sandy breathes slowly, carefully. It is much easier when her skin is touching Tripitaka’s like this, when they are close enough to catch a rhythm and find balance in it. She doesn’t want to think too much or too hard, doesn’t want to let herself wonder what must have happened to tear her away from the tavern for a second time; she recalls, if only through Pigsy’s perspective, the fierce, desperate protectiveness in Monica’s eyes. Remembers how she held her so tight, so careful, remembers the way she threatened him with death if he so much as thought of touching her again.

“Do you know?” she asks him, keeping her eyes on Tripitaka, on the one place that is always safe. “Do you know what happened there? Why she—”

But she will not — _cannot_ — say ‘abandoned me’.

He makes a strained noise, sort of guilty and apologetic at the same time. “Afraid not,” he says, voice ringing clear with honesty. “I couldn’t very well show my face in there again, could I? Not without risking discovery, me and you both. Couldn’t give Her Majesty any reason to suspect I hadn’t...”

He trails off, blanching.

Sandy does not ask any more questions.

“We’ll figure it out,” Tripitaka whispers, cupping her neck and leaning in again. “We’ll go back to the tavern, talk to Monica. Ask her what happened, go back into her head to fill in the last pieces.”

“As we must do,” the Shaman volunteers helpfully, “to complete the restoration of your memory. Pleasant or otherwise, you will have your answers.”

Something cold and heavy settles in Sandy’s stomach. Nausea, sharp and threatening, but something different as well. A kind of fear or dread, a kind of quiet horror that she can’t name or grasp. A shadow thrown across her face, blinding and terrifying at the same time; she feels haunted, like a ghost or some other unnatural thing has just walked through her.

“Not sure if I want to know,” she confesses, pulling away from Tripitaka and drawing her knees up to her chest. “Not sure if I could bear to watch myself being...” She swallows hard. “Being _abandoned_ again.”

“It’s Monica,” Tripitaka says, with a deep, heartfelt passion. “She would never abandon you. Not without a good reason.”

Sandy knows that that. In fact, it’s what she’s afraid of.

Thankfully, she doesn’t get the chance to say so. On the other side of the room, almost entirely forgotten, Monkey clears his throat.

“Not to interrupt a moment,” he says, backing away from the bed like it’s bitten him, “but the evil princess is awake.”

And as all the attention in the room turns to him and Locke, Sandy’s stomach twists with a very different kind of nausea.

*

 


	19. Chapter 19

*

She keeps a safe, uneasy distance.

From the bed, from Locke, from Monkey. From Pigsy and the Shaman, even Tripitaka, as they all rush to crowd around the bed, a wall of swarming bodies, lit up with relief and nervousness and countless other things, good and bad.

Complicated. Confusing. Sandy doesn’t know what to think, what to feel, and she doesn’t trust any of the others — not even Tripitaka — to guide her back to the right place.

Her feelings for Locke are messy even on a good day, and after what she’s just seen, the fading echo of Pigsy’s memories, it’s even more chaotic than usual. Locke, who is responsible for so much of her suffering, who dismissed her as something less than human, less than alive. Locke, who has caused so much pain for so many years, in more than just one young godling, who is cruel and cold and has never cared for anything but herself.

Shouldn’t be complicated at all, put that way. Should be the simplest thing in the whole the world. It has been so long now since they travelled together from the Jade Mountain, those quiet hours after nightfall, Locke pulling back her hair and griping about heartbreak, her hands gentle even as her voice grated like gravel.

It’s been so long since then, and Sandy has been through so much. She remembers, too and she has seen first-hand the shades of blood on Locke’s demonic hands. Has learned, in brutal, graphic detail, that there was no kindness in the way she balked from doing her own evil deeds, no compassion or empathy in the way she made Pigsy do them for her. Malice and spite: she wanted to break him as well.

She is incapable of kindness, just as she always claimed, and Sandy has better things to do with her broken little mind than waste it on pity for a monster who never felt any for her.

Yet still, somehow, in spite of herself, she does.

She stays back, huddled and hunched in the corner of the room. Tries to block out the sounds of their overlapping voices, each of them trying to be heard and none of them with anything of any value to say at all.

It’s overwhelming. Too much noise, too many fraught emotions from all directions; the air is rancid with it. She wants to hide, and she can’t even blame her younger self this time for the ice-shards settling deep in her chest.

Pigsy is wringing his hands, voice tight and high with worry. “Are you all right?”

A simple question, and his worry is certainly understandable. Their relationship was a mess, Sandy knows, a disaster from beginning to end, but he’s always been driven very hard by his emotions; it doesn’t take an expert in romance to know that he never truly got over what happened between them, the difficult choice and the grief that came with doing the right thing.

Locke was a terrible person, a demon, and she treated him like the god he was — acutely aware, in a way he tried to ignore, of the differences in their species, and seeing herself as superior in every way — but Pigsy spent years convincing himself that it was real and true. He hung his life on it, and to no small extent his sanity as well.

Sandy knows all too well how difficult it can be to accept the truth after a life spent tangled up in lies.

She should empathise with him. Should understand better than anyone why he softens when he looks down at his former lover, why it hurts him to see her so weakened and so small. Even Sandy can’t help feeling pity for her; what chance does he have? She should understand, should relate. She should—

But Locke is the reason for all of this. Everything Sandy became, everything Pigsy did to her; she’s the reason they can’t look each other in the eye. And seeing him look at her with that old familiar affection, in spite of everything, feels like a terrible choice. Like his heart matters more than all the pain she made him inflict.

Unfair, she knows. It is instinct, nothing more. The same instinct that tightens around her too, that makes her want to believe a demon is capable of change even after seeing so many times that she’s not, the same instinct that makes her pity her and ache for her.

She knows this, she does.

But still...

Still she feels—

Still, she feels.

Oblivious to her feelings, and no doubt to her presence at all, Locke sits up in bed. She’s much paler than usual, paler than Sandy has ever seen her, drawn and haggard from her ordeal, and despite the fact that she’s spent the best part of two days in bed she looks completely exhausted.

Sandy’s heart twists, feeling guilty almost in spite of itself for putting her through this, then immediately clenches when it remembers why it happened in the first place. She wonders if things will ever be simple again, enemies who are only enemies, friends who are only friends, no blurred lines or confusion to speak of. All this complexity makes her head hurt.

“All good, love,” Locke is saying to Pigsy, pointedly ignoring the rest of the room. “You should know by now, I’m tougher than you think.”

“Good.” His shoulders slump, like he really was frightened for her life. More so than he’s shown for his so-called friend, Sandy thinks, with a bitterness that comes much too easily. “You deserve a lot of things, but not that. Never _that_.”

Sandy’s stomach turns; her whole body seizes and then stiffens. For a split-second she doesn’t know what to feel, and then her vision floods with a dozen different shades of red.

“Apparently the same isn’t true for me,” she hears herself mutter.

Her voice is small, but it carries; every back in the room is suddenly whipcord-straight.

Tripitaka is the first to look at her, the first to abandon the bed in her haste to get back to her side. Sandy knew she would be; she always is. There’s a reason she’s her anchor, her tether, and it’s not just for the way Sandy feels about her. There are other factors at play too: the look in Tripitaka’s eyes now, for example, the way she understands without ever needing to hear more than what Sandy is capable of saying.

“Sandy,” she says, a little tight but running deep with empathy. “You know he didn’t mean it like that. He’s just worried, that’s all.”

“Of course,” Sandy mumbles, nodding a little feverishly. “He still cares for her. Of course he does. Long history, lots of emotions. I do understand that.”

Tripitaka sits. One hand splays across Sandy’s back, offering the usual comfort; the other rests on her knee, palm facing up in a wordless invitation for Sandy to take it if she needs it, to find her anchor and hold on tight.

“I know you do,” she says softly. “It’s okay to understand and feel conflicted at the same time.” She smiles, the brightness swiftly fading, like the light from a setting sun. “She’s a cruel person, and she made him do unspeakable things to you. It’s normal to feel uncomfortable at the sight of them together. It’s okay if you feel pity for her but still resent him a little bit for feeling the same way.”

Sandy shakes her head. Looks up to find the others still staring at her, their faces a spectrum of different expressions. She feels ashamed, but also angry and upset, and vulnerable enough that she wants to do something reckless.

“Never _that_ ,” she says, echoing his words; they taste of bile and acid and old, old blood. “He means what he did to me.”

Tripitaka leans in a little closer, lets her presence ground them both. “I know.”

“I wouldn’t want that for her either,” Sandy says, working out her feelings through the words. “Wouldn’t want it for anyone. Terrible fate. Awful. Nightmare. But...”

“But that doesn’t mean you want to hear _him_ say it.” She hugs her, holding on with all her strength, so tight that Sandy’s ribs creak. “Not to her. Not in front of you.”

It’s true, every word of it. Sandy hides her nod in the rumpled blue fabric at Tripitaka’s shoulder. She still feels stupid and petty, and she has spent too much of her life alone and isolated to know how to deconstruct emotions as messy as these. It’s too hard, it’s too much, it—

She pulls back, finds Tripitaka’s face streaked once more with tears. Wonders, briefly how many tears she’s shed since they came out of Pigsy’s mind, how much of a toll this must be taking on her. She wants so badly to be numb again, to silence her mind completely and take some of the weight of feeling off Tripitaka’s too-slim, too-small shoulders. Would it really be so terrible, she thinks miserably, being broken and lost forever?

She knows the answer, of course. Hears it in the tremors rocking Pigsy’s voice, feels it in the part of her that wouldn’t wish the brokenness on anyone, even the ones who did it to her. Knows it’s better to feel too much than to be dead inside, to be empty and hollow and never feel anything again. She knows this, she does, she does...

Oh, but what she wouldn’t give for just a moment of complete and utter _silence_.

Tripitaka stands, holding out a shaking hand. “Let’s take a walk.”

Sandy sighs, letting her help her to her feet. A sight to behold, she imagines: a tiny little monk-shaped human, barely even half her size, hauling her up like she weighs nothing at all. Tripitaka must look so powerful, so slender, and yet still somehow able to hold a god upright, like a short wall made from the strongest stone.

Sandy leans against her, as best her height will allow. Takes comfort in Tripitaka’s tininess, her hidden depths of strength and power; if such a small human can be so strong, perhaps there’s hope for a broken god as well.

“I don’t want to take a walk,” she says, feeling light-headed. “Don’t know what I want to do. But I don’t...”

Stops, glancing once more at the bed. They’re still looking at her, Pigsy and Locke, but neither one of them seems particularly inclined to say anything. Like she’s not real to them, like she’s just the ghost of a wretched little whelp who should have died many years ago, an echo from a distant past they’d both thought was dead and buried. Just an inconvenient memory, caught and studied and then cast away, like a worthless little guppy in a net full of bigger, more valuable fish.

Just like always.

Her hands clench into fists at her sides. Skin stretched across her knuckles. Nails digging into her palms, almost drawing blood. It hurts, but at least the pain is real and physical. At least when she looks down at herself she can see the marks left behind.

She can feel herself shaking, shuddering, on the brink of something awful, but she doesn’t know what and she doesn’t know how to make it stop. Doesn’t even really know when it started, only that it seems to be trying to swallow all of her at once.

And Tripitaka is looking up at her, wide-eyed and sort of helpless, like she knows this isn’t what Sandy needs, a walk or some fresh air or a quiet moment where it’s just the two of them, but she doesn’t have anything else to offer, doesn’t know of any way to make this moment less difficult or confusing or painful.

And she’s so beautiful and so honest, and the tears well up again in her eyes as she looks up at her and confesses, “I don’t know what to do.”

And Sandy sniffles too, feeling small, and says, “Neither do I.”

And then, out of nowhere, Monkey is standing between them.

And he drops one hand onto each of their shoulders and his smile is so sharp it seems to cut him a little bit just to wear it.

“Lucky for you,” he says, in a smug, secret sort of voice, “I do.”

*

It’s obvious, of course.

Monkey only ever has one solution to any problem, no matter how big or how serious, and it always involves his fists.

Sometimes other people’s fists too.

Like now, like Sandy’s.

Sandy doesn’t mind at all. Her fists are aching from being clenched so tight for so long; they’re hungry for someone else’s to break against.

Tripitaka, thoughtful but just as predictable as Monkey in her own way, is not thrilled.

“She’s in no condition for this,” she sighs when Monkey hands Sandy her scythe and whips out his hairpin-sized staff. “She skipped breakfast. And she’s very upset. And—”

“She’s a god,” Monkey counters breezily. “She doesn’t need sustenance to be able to fight. And her being upset is why we’re doing it. You know, the whole ‘catharsis’ thing, or whatever. Right?”

Sandy tests the weight of her scythe, gripping tight with both hands. It’s been a few days since she last held it in her hands, since she last trusted herself to even think of picking it up. It’s heavier than she remembers, or perhaps she’s simply weaker; the blade glints and gleams under the sun, like someone has sharpened and polished it for her, and pieces of herself seem to fall into place just from holding it.

“It helps,” she says to Tripitaka, absent and thoughtful, hauling the blade up to rest her forehead against the edge; keen and deadly, still it doesn’t even break the skin. “Helps me to not think. Helps me to not feel.” She swallows hard. “I would very much like to not feel for a while.”

She expects resistence, expects Tripitaka to be the monk she swears she’s not, to channel the Scholar and his love of peace and harmony. Tripitaka doesn’t like violence even when it’s necessary; she doesn’t understand Monkey’s love of it, and while she is a little more forgiving of Sandy’s old survival instincts she doesn’t always approve of her more visceral methods either. It’s the way she was raised, warm and protected and surrounded by peace; she can no more drive back the part of her that seeks out peace than Sandy can swallow down a lifetime of needing the violence to keep her alive.

Tripitaka doesn’t seek out peace this time, though, and she doesn’t resist any more than she already has. Perhaps she’s still frustrated with herself for not having any alternative to offer; perhaps she simply understands that this is something that was never meant for her. Either way, she sighs one last time, then throws up her hands in an annoyed-but-acceptant sort of way and steps away from them both.

“If you really think it’ll help,” she says, only a little dramatically. “But maybe try to avoid _actual_ bloodshed?”

Monkey shows off his teeth. “Not making any promises.”

Then he extends his staff, locks eyes with Sandy, and attacks.

And then—

Silence.

Silence and violence, power and precision and—

 _Control_.

The most precious thing, the most elusive thing. Every breath, every movement, every thought completely and utterly under her control. Her legs engaged, her arms tight, the scythe seeming to vibrate in her hands. He strikes, she blocks; she counters, he sidesteps, fast footwork and reflex without thought. And she follows and he leaps and she ducks and they dance, dance, _dance_.

She has so much inside of her. Brutality, blood and bones, and the most insatiable hunger. She has struggled and suffered deeply, had scars on top of scars long before she ever learned about any of this forgotten pain; she has a hundred thousand reasons to be violent, to drown in the moments where there is nothing but blood.

Her mind only really grows quiet in moments like this. When she can’t think too much about what’s happening, can’t focus too hard on giving or taking bruises, can only wonder where the next swing will come from, whether to duck right or dodge left, how long her opponent’s reach is and how steady their balance. Knowing what it means when Monkey leaps backwards or slides to one side or the other, knowing to adjust her stance, her tactics, her whole body, in the hopes of not getting knocked down first.

Monkey knows this. He fights the same way; it was one of the very first things they learned about each other. 

Sandy has often wondered what the inside of his head is like, if it’s quieter than hers after five centuries of enforced silence, or if it’s even louder, powered by so much injustice, by all the words he never got the chance to say to the gods who wronged him. She’ll never ask, so she’ll probably never know for sure, but she knows that moments like this seem to have the same effect on him as they do on her: the violence on the outside, and the silence within.

Smooth. Precise. Efficient.

They know each other’s tactics so well by now. They’ve fought side by side and back to back against the same enemies, have sparred and trained with each other dozens of times; he knows what it means when she drops her centre of gravity, she knows what’s coming when he pulls his shoulders back. And her knuckles are as white as ice where she grips her scythe, but her fingers aren’t making fists and her hands aren’t shaking and she doesn’t want to gouge his eyes out.

Not like she wants to do to—

To—

A _crack_ , clean and sharp across her shoulder blades. She spins, suddenly dizzy, and for a moment she can’t see anything but red. _Red_ , a warning, a threat, a flash of danger, and then—

And then her vision clears, and she sees him. His smirk, all flashing teeth and friendly competition. His broad shoulders, glistening, the sheen of sweat flushing his sun-darkened skin even darker. A glint in his eye, broadcasting his next move.

She lets her scythe clatter to the ground.

Throws herself at him.

Her fists—

 _No_.

Her legs—

Yes.

A low sweep, knocking him off-balance. Then a high kick, straight for the throat. More force than it needs, but she can’t help that. She’s still seeing the world in the wrong colours, still feeling the hum of it inside of her, the air shimmering and crackling, danger wrapping itself around her so tight, so _tight_ , and she can’t—

 _Control_.

He staggers back. She spins, a whirlwind of long limbs and—

 _Violence_.

She looks down at her hands.

 _Fists_.

And the red-soaked danger pulls itself even more tightly around her, tighter and tighter until she can’t breathe at all, until she’s drowning in it, consumed and devoured, and—

And she hears, from far away, Tripitaka calling her name, high with panic.

And the smile has vanished from Monkey’s face now, replaced by something she doesn’t recognise; not fear, never in him, but something not too far away. He doesn’t raise his arms as she lunges again, doesn’t try to defend himself at all as she hurls herself at him, her whole body, all of her, with every ounce of strength she has.

They hit the ground together, her on top of him, lashing out blindly at his chest, fists shaking like stone struck by falling ice, and they both know he could shove her off him if he really wanted to, both know that she is half-blind and half-lost, that her balance is as shot as her mind, but he doesn’t.

He only lies there.

Motionless under her shaking body.

Holding himself still, he just takes it.

And _that_ , the sight of him staring up at her, patience and understanding blazing in his eyes even as she throws punch after punch, is what brings her back to herself.

She blinks, shakes her head to clear it, and the red-tinted haze lifts from her vision, releasing its grip on her.

Monkey, recognising the instant it fades, sits up carefully. Sandy’s balance shifts with the motion, and she topples, falling off him and into a mouthful of dirt.

Not really undeserved. Even she can’t deny that.

She decides to stay down.

Eyes closed, breathing in damp earth and soil, she’s not the least bit surprised to hear a deep sigh above her, or to feel the sudden chill of a little monk-shaped shadow falling across her face. Tripitaka, disapproving and frustrated but also characteristically worried.

“What happened?” For all her obvious annoyance, she can’t seem to stop her voice from trembling; Sandy’s shoulders tremble a little too, stiff and bruise-sore in the place where Monkey’s staff made its contact. “Lost yourself? Lost control? Lost your temper? How worried do I need to be?”

Ashamed and upset by the questions and the myriad unvoiced meanings behind them, Sandy doesn’t answer.

Monkey, being neither ashamed nor upset, does.

“Temper,” he says, with all the cocksure certainty of someone who just knows these things, who doesn’t need to think about it at all. “It’s no big deal, monk. Don’t make it one.”

His shadow crosses Tripitaka’s, then gently nudges it out of the way. Sandy squints up to find him towering over her, one hand outstretched, an offer to help her up and a gesture of peacemaking at the same time. She doesn’t really want to stand, definitely doesn’t want to have to look Tripitaka in the eye, but it is so rare that Monkey is chivalrous about anything, and never after such a crushing defeat, she doesn’t want to let the moment pass.

So, grudgingly, she accepts his hand and hauls herself clumsily back up onto her feet. Doesn’t look up, even as she rises, but she can still feel Tripitaka staring at the top of her head.

“Temper,” she’s saying, in a tense, highly displeased voice. “Really?”

Sandy keeps her eyes on the ground, at the broad prints left in the dirt by her face and Monkey’s shoulders. “It’s complicated.”

Meaning that she doesn’t really understand it herself.

Monkey, apparently, does. Feelings aren’t his friends, any more than they are Sandy’s, but he experiences them nearly as strongly as she does and he is intimately acquainted with those fleeting bursts of red-hazed rage.

“Which one of them were you thinking of?” he asks. Casual, conversational. Like she didn’t just throw him down onto his back and try to beat him senseless. “Him or her?”

“I wasn’t...” She shakes her head, swallows the denial. “Don’t know.”

“Right. Of course.” He doesn’t press it, just shrinks his staff, slides it back into his hair, then massages his shoulders. “Made you tougher, though. Usually you hold back.”

“Do not.”

“Yeah, you do.” He’s serious, the way he often gets when talking about things like technique, like technicality. “Like you’re so scared of hurting me you leave yourself open for me to take you down instead.”

She glowers; it’s a comfortable feeling after the discomfort of losing control. “Untrue. Just don’t want to humiliate you.”

“Sure you don’t.” He rolls his eyes. “Like that time you had me up against that tree, all ready to be pummelled, and then you choked?”

Sandy flushes. She is unpleasantly aware of the way Tripitaka is watching them, of the fact that they’re supposed to be her protectors, that she cannot afford to ‘choke’ in the heat of battle, for any reason, sentimental, fearful, or otherwise. She does not appreciate Monkey bringing that up in front of their human.

“I didn’t choke,” she mutters, hot and uncomfortable. “I just wanted to give you a chance to save face before I...”

Stops, trailing off with a sigh. She doesn’t have the strength to argue, or to pretend.

Monkey, seeing the way she deflates for the weakness it is, sighs too, and moves swiftly on. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “Point is, you lost your temper. And that’s not...” He blows out a breath, frustrated by the need for more than a couple of simple words to get his point across. Sandy empathises. “It’s not a bad thing, you know? I mean, it’s kind of the reason why we’re doing this in the first place: to vent our stupid feelings.”

“To silence my stupid head,” Sandy corrects, with a touch of bitterness. “To not think or feel or...” She growls, fists balling again. “This is the opposite of that. Too much feeling, too little control. Don’t want to feel so much. Don’t want to feel so...”

“Angry?”

“No.” But saying the word isn’t going to make it true. “ _Yes_.”

He chuckles, then winces, and all the levity bleeds out of him.

“I get it,” he says, not looking at her. “I mean, I _really_ get it.”

She knows it’s true. Knows it as deeply and completely as she knows her own name. Perhaps more even than that, at least right now. Still, though, she hears herself croak, “Do you?”

“Yeah.” He’s deadly serious, and somehow that helps a lot. “Why do you think I dragged you out here in the first place?”

“Because it’s been three days since you last hit something?”

His mouth opens and closes for a second.

“Uh, that too.” He clears his throat. “But I mean, the other thing. The helplessness, the frustration, the wanting to throw yourself at everyone in the room, to tear the whole damn world apart just so it feels like someone else might hurt as much as you are. Being so full of it you can’t see straight. _That_.”

Sandy knows that this is something he’s struggled with, perhaps even more than she has. After the breaking ground, he was violently angry for a very long time, boiling and simmering and losing his temper for no discernible reason; they all gave him a wide berth, tried to let him work through what he’d learned and been through in his own time, but Sandy remembers all too well the rage that would flare up behind his eyes when his thoughts strayed to darker places.

She thinks she understands where they’re straying to now. Thinks she can see where it’s coming from, the cruel shadows where helplessness twists and tightens until it becomes rage and violence, the mist-gathering corners where hate can’t thrive but the anger is burning hot and hard.

She looks down. Finds Tripitaka gazing up at them with that blessed, beautiful hope in her eyes, eager and open and—

“Tripitaka.” Her voice cracks. “Could you give us a moment?”

Tripitaka looks a little stung. Tries to hide it, to smooth over the shallow cut with a shrug and a puzzled frown, but Sandy sees through it as if it was never there. She feels it vibrating up and down her nerves and her bones; it evokes another sort of anger, a fresh, different sort of pain.

“Sure,” Tripitaka says in a strange, strained voice. “I guess I’ll go and get lunch.”

And off she slinks, shoulders slumped and head bowed low.

*

They sit together on the ground, Sandy and Monkey, close but not touching.

He’s studying her thoughtfully, wearing a strange look on his face, and when he speaks it’s slow and careful, like some part of him is convinced she’s playing an angle, trying to exploit or mock him. It makes her sad that he’d think that way, even after all the time they’ve spent together, but she’s learned from experience how hard it is be to shed old survival instincts. Once, not so long ago, believing the worst of everyone kept him from getting hurt; she won’t take that security blanket away from him by getting affronted.

“Been a while since you unglued yourself from the monk’s side,” he remarks, curious but still very guarded. “You’re not mad at her again, are you?”

“No.” She looks down at the earth, at her abandoned scythe, cast aside in favour of a more direct approach. “For her sake this time. Anger makes her uncomfortable. I don’t think she understands how it feels to be... to be like us.”

“Angry all the time?” He snorts, amused and a little bit sad. “Yeah, it’s not really her thing.”

“She is very much a monk,” Sandy sighs. “Whether she realises it or not. And we... that is, you and I... we’re not. Could never be, I don’t think. We both feel things much too strongly.”

He nods, fists balling instinctively at his sides. “Like anger. And hatred. And—”

“No.” Sandy looks him in the eye. Sees herself reflected there, in more ways than one. “Like anger at the _absence_ of hatred.”

Monkey, stubborn and wilful and courageous to a fault, flinches.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mutters, in a voice that says he knows exactly what she’s talking about.

Sandy doesn’t mind explaining it, though. It’s so rare that she is able to, that she grasps any subject well enough to talk about it at length, or that the others are willing to listen when she does. She is known for many things, her talent with her scythe and her affinity to water as the most obvious examples, but her mind was never on that list even before it started splitting at the seams. It is nice, if somewhat rare, to be able to use it well.

“You asked me who I was thinking of,” she says. “When I lost my temper and my... control.” It is difficult to admit the last part, to voice aloud and make it true: another loss of control, another explosion of violence that she couldn’t hold back. “Whether it was Pigsy, who did such terrible things to me, or Locke, who made him do them. But I think what you really wanted to ask was which one of them do I _hate_.”

“Same question,” Monkey says with a shrug. “Answer one, you’ll answer the other.”

The words are careless, casual, but the look on his face is quite the opposite; this runs terribly deep for him as well. Sandy lets it hang on the air for a moment, lets him hold it close, then she shakes her head. “I don’t think it is.”

“Sure it is.” His body tenses, a cord pulled tighter and tighter. “I saw your eyes when you came at me. You were blind with it. _Anger_ , so much you could barely breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but throw yourself at the first thing that moved. I know that kind of anger. You can’t tell me there wasn’t some hate in there too.”

“If there was,” Sandy says quietly, “I wouldn’t have been so angry in the first place.”

Monkey opens his mouth, then closes it again. He doesn’t want to understand, but he does. Too deeply, too intimately, too completely. He does.

"Right,” he mumbles, suddenly uncomfortable. “I mean... him, I get, because it’s all muddy. You’re friends now, sort of. Or, well, you’ve been through some stuff together. Fought side-by-side, overcome impossible odds, killed demons, blah, blah, blah. Not to mention the, uh, cooking debacle.”

In spite of herself, Sandy smiles. “Lest we forget.”

He grunts, mock-shuddering, then sobers again. “So, yeah, I get not wanting... I mean, not being able to hate him after all that.” He studies his hands a while, choosing his next words carefully. Trying to be sensitive in his characteristically clumsy way. “But her? I mean, c’mon. She’s just plain evil.”

“Yes.” Sandy follows his gaze, traces the hard lines of his knuckles with her eyes, imagines them cracking against her face, shattering between her ribs. The thought of violence, safe inside her head, calms her a little. “She is evil. Enjoys being evil. Revels in it.”

“So hate her, then,” he says, like he can convince either one of them it’s really that simple. “You can’t hate him, that’s fine. But she’s asking for it. Like, seriously, asking for it. You want a vent for your anger, you’re never going to find a better one than her.” He glances up, frowning at her with softening curiosity, like he’s trying to make sense of her, trying to see the world the same disjointed way she does. “You know it’s okay, right? It doesn’t make you a bad person if you hate someone who did bad stuff to you.”

“I know that.” Still, she bristles, feeling the anger rise again despite her best efforts to hold it down. “I don’t need your permission.”

He throws up his hands a bit, but doesn’t get annoyed at her defensiveness; that’s rather telling in itself. She watches as his eyes grow cloudy and then hard, as he retreats a little bit inside himself. Thinking about his own anger, possibly, and the demons he too can’t bring himself to hate.

“It’s not that hard,” he mutters, but Sandy can tell he’s not really speaking to her. “Hate the people who hurt you. It’s not _difficult_.”

Shouldn’t be, he means.

Shouldn’t be difficult. Should be easy. Should be comfortable.

Should be natural, gods hating demons. Should be as simple as breathing, hating the people who inflicted so much pain.

Sandy looks up at Monkey, finds his face contorted in a rictus of quiet fury. Anger, seething and boiling, but no hatred at all.

“Davari?” she asks softly. “Or the Shaman?”

He stiffens. “I thought we were talking about you.”

“I’ve done nothing but talk about me for days.” Even just saying it makes her feel exhausted all the way down to her bones. “I’m so tired of talking about me. I’m tired of existing only inside my trauma and my pain and my feelings.” She closes her eyes, tries to block it all out. Knows, even before she starts, that it’s futile, that it can’t end until it’s over. “Besides, yours are the same as mine. Aren’t they?”

“No.” Said a little too fast, thought, and a little too sharp. Like he’s nervous, maybe, or grazing too close to something he doesn’t want to see. “No, mine are nothing like yours. You were a little kid. I was...”

“Older?”

She knows that the word matters, that it’s an important part of what happened. She can feel it in the way her younger self sobs and screams inside her head, the fear and horror and confusion so much worse through the eyes of a child. It is so much a part of what she went through, being young and small in her helplessness, but the way he look at her says that’s not the issue he’s grappling with.

“ _Tougher_.”

He spits the word, sort of choking on it, like somehow that matters more to him than being older or more worldly, or understanding who and what he is.

Sandy isn’t sure she understands, but for his sake she pretends to. “Oh.”

He snorts, seeing through the façade. “Do you have any idea how many demons I’ve killed? How many I’d already killed by the time I was betrayed and locked away? How many more I’d killed by the time your stupid Shaman started poking around inside my head?”

Sandy ducks her head, pretending to think. “Many?”

“Hundreds.” He sighs, like he can feel the weight of each and every one of them. “I’ve spent my life hating demons. My whole life. Centuries before you were born, I was adding demon-shaped notches to my staff. And believe me: five hundred years in a rock paying penance for a demon’s crime didn’t make me hate them any less.” His hands make new fists in his lap, trembling a little with anger and something a little softer. “I’ve never had trouble hating one before _Never_.”

“But Davari was your friend,” Sandy says. “Or you thought he was. Believed it, in your heart. You trusted him, cared for him. Even knowing he betrayed you, those feelings don’t go away.”

“They _should_ ,” Monkey growls, but doesn’t deny the point.

Sandy smiles, lonely and deeply sad. “And the Shaman—”

“The Shaman’s an idiot.” His voice roughens, grows thick with something undefinable, something that is definitely not hatred. “He’d be dead ten times over by now if he didn’t... if he wasn’t...”

And he lurches to his feet, looking around with feverish desperation for something to punch.

Sandy stands as well, more fluidly, leaving her scythe where it lies. No use for weapons, not when her fists are as tight as his, not when her anger is bleeding out in all the same colours.

She charges at him, swinging hard, and there’s a strange satisfaction in the _crack_ as he brings up his arm to block, the jolt of impact vibrating along her bones, her nerves, her everything.

“He’s an _idiot_ ,” he snarls again, whirling to counter with his off-arm. He roars his frustration when she ducks out of reach, then lashes out again. Sloppy, clumsy, furious. “If you didn’t need him to fix your brain, I’d...”

“No.” She sidesteps easily, then sweeps low with her leg. “You still wouldn’t hate him. Won’t hate him, even after he’s mended me. He’s no longer the monster who tormented you, and you’re starting to see that.”

Monkey leaps over her foot, lands awkwardly and throws a weak, off-balance punch. She dodges again, and he uses the momentum to reset his equilibrium, to reorient himself.

“He’s just playing nice because there’s three of us and only one of him,” he snarls, breathing much more heavily than he normally would from such minimal exertion. “And because his so-called ‘employer’ is gone. Idiots like him, they can’t think for themselves. No-one left for him to follow around like the stupid little sheep he is, so he tags along with us, makes himself useful because he thinks it’ll keep him alive.” He turns, spits in the dirt, then rounds on her again. “ _Idiot_.” 

This time, the punch comes out of nowhere; Sandy reels, dizzy for a fraction of a second as his knuckles find her face. 

Then she shakes it off, drops her centre of gravity, and kicks him squarely in the chest.

“He’s suffered for me,” she says, teeth bared as he hits the ground, the impact throwing up dust; she coughs a little, but doesn’t let it slow her down. On top of him again, knees braced on either side of his ribcage, she keeps going. “He did harm to one of his own. Exhausted himself, body and mind and spirit. Bled his powers dry, so much so that you had to give up some of your own to sustain us both. And you—”

He struggles under her, but it’s half-hearted; she doesn’t even need to flex her thighs to hold him down. “Shut up.”

She shakes her head. “You know this, Monkey. You’d never have done what you did if you didn’t know it. You let him drain you, let him make you weak again. Let him take some of your power for himself. Would you have even considered such a thing if there was even a shred of hatred left in you?”

His strength and rage surge up again, defiant and half-blind; he throws her off, and doesn’t give her a moment to catch her breath. Another blow, and she doesn’t duck quickly enough, and while she’s still reeling he roars, “I did that for _you_ , you ass, not for him!”

She recovers herself, blocks his next assault without effort. He’s furious now, and that makes him clumsy, like she was before.

“You did it for both of us,” she counters, ducking when he lashes out again. “For me, because I’m you’re friend and you wanted to help. And for him, too, because you've watched him suffer and struggle and burn himself to the ground, because you’ve seen the lengths he’s gone to, the strain he’s poured onto himself, all for the sake of a god he should hate.”

“I don’t care,” Monkey shouts. “It doesn’t change what he did to me! He could bring you back from the dead a million times, and it would never stop me from hating him!”

And he swings again, unseeing and completely out of control, so much an echo of Sandy’s wild heart that she almost feels a little bit guilty when she catches him by the wrist and twists his arm, wrenching it back until he cries out, until he — until _they_ — have no choice but to stop.

“You don’t hate him, Monkey,” she says, and the words tear through them both, the part of him that wants so desperately to feel repulsed by the demons who hurt him, and the part of her that can’t control the strange anger she feels when she looks at Pigsy and Locke, that wishes she could twist that feeling into something as simple as hate. “You haven’t hated him for a while. That’s why you’re so angry.”

His arm loses a little of its tension, and so she lets him go.

He slumps a little, bracing on his knees, using the need to catch his breath as an excuse not to look at her, not to look at anything, as he processes his unwanted feelings.

“It doesn’t change anything,” he says after a moment. “It doesn’t matter how good he is to you or how self-sacrificing or whatever else. It doesn’t matter how much he makes himself suffer so that you don’t have to. He still did what he did to me. Forced me to see, forced me to remember, to learn, to...” His voice breaks, and she moves in again, hands on his shoulders, not to silence him but to offer support, to ground him the same way Tripitaka does to her. “He still _hurt me_. And I hate that I can’t hate him any more. I hate that I can’t...”

He sniffles, choking on a sob they both know he’ll never let out. Sandy’s throat tightens too, spasming around all the words she can’t say, strangled and swallowed and suffocated by the same feelings, the same hurt and anger and why-can’t-she-just- _hate_. All of it exactly the same, but she’s not as ashamed of her tears as Monkey is of his, and when they bubble to the surface she doesn’t force them back.

He jolts backwards when she starts to cry, like the sound is a frightening thing, like the salt of her tears is scalding to the skin.

“Don’t do that,” he says, seemingly oblivious to the water forming in his own eyes too. “I’ll have to go get Tripitaka if you do that.”

She chuckles, the flash of amusement briefly chasing away the sorrow.

“I want to hate too,” she says. “Both of them, but mostly him.”

He starts a little at that, visibly surprised. “Seriously? The one who’s actually trying to make good?”

Sandy ducks her head, conceding the wrongness of it. “I know it’s not... I know it’s the wrong way round. Should be easier wanting to hate her. Evil. Demon. We were enemies long before I knew about any of this, and what I’ve learned doesn’t make it less. If she hadn’t told him to do it, if she hadn’t wanted to rip apart all his soft feelings...”

She shakes her head; just thinking about it makes her shudder. Monkey doesn’t touch her, but his fingers twitch at his sides. “Never met a demon who loves the dirt as much as she does but still tries to keep her hands clean,” he mutters.

“She’s gotten very good at it,” Sandy agrees, then sighs. “I know it was her. All of it, everything. But she’s not... she spoke the truth, Monkey, when she said she didn’t touch me. Not once, not ever. Never laid a hand on me. Never hurt me. Maybe yelled at me a little bit, to keep me quiet, but that...”

“It didn’t scare you.” He looks conflicted, a little bit heartbroken, but like he understands. “Didn’t scare _her_ , I mean. The, uh... the younger you?” She nods, touched that he remembered, and he grins. “I mean, I guess it kind of makes sense, right? Pigsy’s a big guy. Like, in a bunch of ways. And you’re a scrawny little bit of a thing, even now. Back then, when you were even littler, he must have looked like—”

“A mountain.” Saying it out loud sends her reeling, drives parts of her mind back there. She has to swallow hard to hold on to who and where she really is. “I’d never seen anyone so big. Human, demon, anyone. And I’d never seen another god before. I don’t...” Thinking about it makes her head ache; the memories are still settling, still a little too new. “It’s hard to remember properly. But he was the only one who spent any time with me. Never really saw her at all, but him... all the time.”

She pauses, catching her breath. Monkey, taking the hesitation as his cue to say something, scrambles for a half-hearted, “Ouch.”

Sandy pats his arm, appreciating the effort. “I know... I mean, I know _now_ that she’s the evil one, the one I should hate. But then... at the time and in my head... he’s the one I remember being scared of. And he’s the one I remember hurting me.”

He nods, looking as drawn and worn as she feels. “Hard to let go of that,” he says. “Being hurt, feeling betrayed. And you... you know he’s a better person. Or becoming one, maybe. Whatever. But you remember... or half-remember, I guess... the stuff he did. Like, it’s _there,_ and you can’t let go of...” He trails off, looking down, and she can tell he’s thinking about his own demons now, the literal ones, the Shaman who is becoming better and Davari who never did and never could. “It gets so messed up.”

Sandy smiles. Her heart swells a little, almost in spite of itself, sweetness and suffering at the same time, warmed and comforted because he understands and then cracked and sorrowful because he _understands_.

“Maybe...” She lets her breath settle in her chest, pushing the feeling down. “Maybe I don’t really want to hate. Him or her. Either of them. Maybe I... maybe I just have so much anger and fear, I don’t know what else to do with it.”

Monkey sits back down. He looks almost more exhausted than she’s ever seen him, like maybe the conversation has worn him out more than all the physical brutality put together. Probably did, knowing the way he works; Sandy has seen him fight legions of demons, long and protracted combat seemingly without end. She’s fought by his side through some of them, too, and she knows from experience how much stamina such things require. But they’re gods, the two of them, and they were made for that sort of combat; even the slim, weedy ones like her, more connected to the elemental than the physical, have endurance to last for days.

Violence is easy. They both know this. But talking...

 _That_ is exhausting.

Perhaps that’s why they both look up to Tripitaka the way they do. She speaks like it’s effortless, like the ebb and flow of water or the rise and fall of the sun, like words are the greatest weapon she has. She could command armies with her voice, gods and demons and everything in between, while Monkey and Sandy could only watch, awestruck and silent and a little bit in love.

They try, though, all of them, to be more like her. And no-one — not even Sandy, with all her adoration and years of waiting — tries as hard as Monkey.

He looks at Sandy now, tired and frustrated and filled with just as much anger and fear as she is. Older, yes, and tougher, but for now, at least, he feels just as small.

“I’m sure Tripitaka’s already said that ‘you’re not alone’ stuff,” he says, low and contemplative. “Like, a thousand times, probably. So many times it’s lost its meaning by now.” He laughs a little, and it comes with so much effort, so much terrible strain, what else can Sandy do but smile back? “But it’s true, you know. Like, not in that fancy monk-talk way, all sticky feelings and holding hands and all that stuff she does with you. But like...”

He gestures, jaw clenching as he fails to find the words. Sandy bites down on the instinct to touch his hand, to tell him that it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t have to say anything.

“Monkey,” she says, and it’s not enough but it’s all she has; like him, she can never seem to find the right thing to say.

He shakes his head, then pulls away and touches his chest, the quiet place where his broken heart is beating. 

“In here,” he says softly. “That’s what I mean. Not in the places you can touch with your hands, but we... they sound the same, yours and mine. Same rhythm. Same pain. You know?”

Sandy does know. She nods, feeling the words and the truth resonate inside her. “And we heal together?”

The smile flickers on his face, and his features grow achingly soft.

“We heal, or we don’t,” he says. So simple, so straightforward, but Sandy thinks that’s the first time someone has given voice to the second part, the first time she’s heard it said without sorrow or frustration or grief. “But either way... yeah. Together.”

And then the smile grows again, warmer and brighter on both their faces.

If they hadn’t sent her away, Sandy thinks Tripitaka would be very proud.

*

They return to the palace a short while later.

A couple more rounds of combat, a few more bruises shared between them, and they’re both feeling a little more in control.

Well, Sandy is. And going by the look on Monkey’s face, he feels the same way too; the smile has long since vanished now, replaced with a more characteristic scowl, and he’s rubbing the spot on his jaw where her elbow caught him during their last bout. But his shoulders and gait are steady and relaxed, and he looks more like himself — irritable but calm, comfortable again in his own skin — than he has in a long while.

He’s recovered enough, at least, that he doesn’t flinch when they re-enter the bedroom to find the Shaman looming over the bed, speaking to Pigsy like he owns a part of his soul.

Sandy—

Sandy does flinch. But only a little. And she doesn’t see red.

She sees—

She sees the way Pigsy’s brow is knotted, tension and worry turning him unnaturally pale. She sees the food that someone —Tripitaka, most likely — has placed at his feet, untouched and long since gone cold.

She sees Locke, still tucked up in bed, even paler than he is but in much better spirits. She sees the way her eyes widen as they enter, the dull haze of fading pain replaced by something quick and sharp, the shadow of shame.

She sees—

 _Nothing_ , her vision suddenly drowned in a flurry of blue and brown, a burst of warmth slamming into her and dulling all her senses as Tripitaka throws her arms around her neck.

The difference in their height makes the gesture a touch more awkward than it should be; Sandy accommodates her by stooping a little, mustering a strained but sincere smile when she straightens back up.

“That was... forceful,” she muses, raising a brow. “I take it you’re not still upset we sent you away?”

“No.” There are tears in Tripitaka’s voice, and she’s not smiling at all. “Of course not.”

Sandy takes a couple of steps back, feeling suddenly uneasy. “Did something happen?”

“No.” But her voice is shaking and so are her shoulders, and she won’t look her in the eye. “Sandy, I...”

But Sandy has heard her name in that voice too many times by now, and she knows what it means. Deception, hidden depths, the truth pulled away and shoved out of sight before she can catch it. Tripitaka is holding something close, a secret or something else, and she won’t give it up, and that—

That is not something Sandy wants to engage with.

Not again.

So she pulls away. Turns with her whole body, blocking out Tripitaka as best she can — never an easy or a pleasant task when she aches with everything she is to drown in her — and faces the bed instead.

Locke is still there, still swaddled in bedsheets and blankets, eyes glazed with boredom as the Shaman talks to Pigsy across her body. Not the most pleasant choice of companion, Sandy supposes, but an honest one, at least. One who would never hide the truth or try to shield her from it, one who would never care enough to bother trying to deceive anyone.

Locke may be a demon and a monster, and there is still a not-at-all-little part of Sandy that’s still sort of trying to hate her, but at least she knows exactly where they stand with each other.

She takes a breath, lets the echo of anger and not-quite-hate settle under her skin. Braces herself, ignoring Tripitaka’s ragged voice choking on her name, and steps forward.

“Leave,” she says to Pigsy. Weak and tremulous, with none of the authority she was aiming for, it comes out more like a plea. And so, because she can’t fight that side of herself, she makes it one: “Please. I can’t talk to you yet, but I want to talk to her. So, please...”

He doesn’t need telling twice; no doubt he’s relieved for an excuse to run away from the unpleasant, awful conversation they’ll eventually need to have.

He steps away from the bed, weaving clumsily like he doesn’t know whether to speak or stay silent, eyeing her like she’s something dangerous. And perhaps he’s not wrong; Sandy is mostly sure she’s got her anger pinned down, but still she feels a flicker of it resurface as he passes her, as he lifts a hand, instinctively, as though to clap her on the shoulder. It’s a casual, careless touch, one they’ve shared a hundred times before, but—

She bares her teeth, a snarl curling her lip, her own instincts sharpening inside of her. Naturally, he lurches backwards, recoiling, staring at her open-mouthed like she’s just slapped him across the face.

She wouldn’t, of course. Her thoughts are much more violent.

She closes her eyes and tries to shut them out. Counts to ten, waits until she’s certain he’s gone, safely out of reach, and then she opens them again. Looks down into the bed, at—

Locke, smiling up at her like nothing has happened. “All right, love?”

“Not really,” Sandy says blankly. She cuts a glance at the Shaman, still hovering over the bed and studying his patient like there’s no-one and nothing else in the whole world. “Is she well? Can you leave us?”

“Of course.” Polite and courteous, as always. He moves to touch her as well, no doubt to check her steadiness; from him she allows it. “Do not over-exert yourself, either of you.”

And then he’s gone, vanishing into thin air with a wave of his hand and a thrumming crack of white magic.

Sandy waits until the blast clears from her vision, then looks down at the body in the bed. Clasps her hands together in front of her to keep herself from reaching out and doing something she’ll regret. She can taste blood in her mouth already, and she wonders if it’s real, the effort of biting down on all that anger, or if it’s the echo of decades-dead pain flooding back to haunt her once more.

Doesn’t matter. She swallows down the tang, takes a deep breath, and says, “Are you well?”

“Been better,” Locke replies with shrug. “Been worse too, as it happens. You here to extend your commiserations or finish the job?”

“Don’t know.” Honesty, the one thing she has left, the one thing worth valuing in a monster like Locke; in this alone, they are equal. “A part of me would very much like to hurt you. But a larger part of me looks at you and feels nothing at all.”

Her legs are trembling, but she doesn’t sit, will not make herself smaller than she already feels, even next to someone lying down. Locke’s eyes are weapons of their own, keen blades aimed to kill, and she uses them with devastating effectiveness.

“Lucky me,” she deadpans.

“Mm. Lucky that I care so little for you.” She thinks about that for a moment or two, then sighs. “But then, that’s always been your talent, hasn’t it? Making other people feel precisely what you want them to. Making them care as much or as little as suits your needs. If you’d wanted me to hate you, I’d have my hands around your throat already. If you’d wanted me to be afraid of you, I’d be trembling and helpless. But since neither of those things are happening right now, I can only assume that was your intention all along: that I never felt much about you at all.”

“Ooh, clever girl.” Her leer is unsettling. It makes Sandy’s stomach squirm, but she refuses to look away. “Looks like you grew into those scrambled brains of yours after all, eh?”

The bloody tang in Sandy’s mouth intensifies. She swallows it down, fights to keep from gagging, from _strangling_ —

“Did you know?” she forces out, breathing raggedly, clinging to her control with slipping fingers. “We clashed many times over the years, you and me and him. Did you know I was the same god you’d given up for dead? The same child you called a ‘vegetable’?”

“That part you remember, eh?” She doesn’t sound particularly bothered by the fact, or ashamed of herself. “Just calling it as I saw it, sweetness. Nothing personal. And from what I hear tell, you’ve been called far worse in your time.”

A fair enough point. Sandy concedes it, shrugs, then moves on. “Did you know who I was?” she asks again, harder. “All those years we fought each other. Did you know that I was her? That I’d survived? That your... that _he_ hadn’t...”

But she can’t say it. Just thinking it makes her feel violently sick. Her stomach rolls, then leaps into her mouth, smothering the taste of blood with acid and nausea. She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to block out the memory of Pigsy’s grief, his heartbreak, his regret.

“You think I would’ve let him live if I’d known?” Locke laughs, as calloused and cold as ever. “Of course I didn’t bloody know! Not until he showed up at the Jade Palace and ‘invited’ me to come back with you lot to this rubbish-pile you call a town.”

Makes sense, Sandy supposes grudgingly. The churning in her stomach settles, if only a little. “And did you care?” she asks. “Once you figured it out?”

“Not particularly.” Another shrug. This one seems to wear her out a bit, though; when she leans back against the pillows, she looks drained and pallid. “After all the trouble you’d given me over the years, it just made me wish I’d done the job myself.”

That also makes sense, though Sandy is not inclined to admit it. “So all those hours you spent on the journey here, braiding my hair and chatting with me? Showing me kindness, treating me like a...” She breaks off, a bit unsure of what to say; not ‘human’, certainly not, but she’ll die before she’ll say ‘demon’. “...like a _person_.”

Locke is staring at her now, like she’s wondering if Sandy has lost the last few fragments of her mind that were still intact.

“Easy to show kindness when you’re chained up and threatened,” she points out, voice sort of dipping and flowing, like someone who can’t believe this is something they need to explain. “I did what I could for you. That much was true.”

“But _why_?” And there it is: the question that has been troubling her, keeping her conflicted and confused from the moment she discovered the truth. She won’t know peace, she knows, until she can understand. “You had nothing to gain from showing kindness to me. Even if Tripitaka had forced you to care for my hair because she couldn’t do it herself, there was no need for you to be civil. No reason to make conversation, to talk or to... to _connect_ , or whatever it is you were trying to do. You could have endured the task in silence, or treated me cruelly, or been petty. You knew so many things that I didn’t, you could have taunted me, abused me, mocked me. You could have...”

Her voice cracks, and she doesn’t know why. Locke’s expression flickers almost imperceptibly.

“Could’ve done any number of things,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “If I’d had a mind to.”

Sandy nods, swallowing hard. “You must have known we’d find out the truth. Must have realised it was only a matter of time. Were you trying to make it more difficult by making me feel compassion for you?”

Locke considers that for an unexpectedly long time. Sandy watches her the subtle changes in her features, watches the colours shift behind her eyes; she looks tired and drawn, not nearly so intimidating when she’s on her back as when she’s standing up. She’s never been particularly tall, but her presence and her raw physicality always gave her the illusion of it. Now, sprawled on her back in a bed long since reclaimed by the people she stole it from, she looks as weak as a kitten.

Sandy wishes she knew how to feel about that, wishes that her heart and her mind could agree. Pity at seeing such a great and formidable power brought so low, satisfaction at the knowledge that she deserved it. Guilt because it’s all her fault, her condition, because her suffering has spread and spread until it’s infected even the strongest of her companions. Righteous fury, anger, as close to hatred as her pathetic little heart can get. _How does it feel to endure the pain you inflicted on me all those years ago?_

All of them, all at once. None of them, nothing at all. Trying to piece it together makes her body feel weak, makes her mind feel ready to split and shatter.

Finally, just as Sandy is willing to do just about anything to end the quiet and the confusion inside her, Locke sighs and mutters, “Dunno.”

“You don’t know.” She tries to sound flat, toneless, even derisive. Tries too hard, ends up sounding even smaller than she did before. “You don’t know why you opened up to me? Talked with me, like we were—”

“—friends?” Locke’s laughter has always been a gruesome, macabre sort of sound, and it’s far worse when she’s flat on her back and still so weak. “Ah, you gods and your sentimentality.” And the laughter trickles out into nothing, replaced by a weary sigh. “I mean it. I really don’t know. Maybe I just felt sorry for you. The state you were in, who wouldn’t? Sick in your head, sick to your stomach, and your so-called ‘friends’ all gawking like you were made of broken glass. Someone had to act like you were normal.”

The word sticks in Sandy’s throat, makes her mouth flood with fresh blood. 

“You knew why I wasn’t,” she hisses. “The whole time, the entire journey. You knew why my mind was making me sick. You knew why we were coming back here. You knew what I was and what had happened to me. You knew that _you_ were responsible.”

“Yeah. And I also knew it wouldn’t make any bloody difference.” She sighs again, but it’s not so tired now; it’s weighted with pity. “One way or the other, as you say, the truth was going to come out eventually. Why make it even harder on myself than it already was?” She sits up a bit, wincing with the effort. “You forget how little you meant to me. How little you still mean to me. Do you know how many of your kind have passed through my doors, love, through the decades?”

Sandy lets that sit for a while. The truth of it on the surface, and the deeper truth hidden in the words Locke hasn’t said, the ones that maybe even she would struggle to choke down.

She takes a moment to brace herself, breathes fast and shallow, feeling out the question that scares her, the one she doesn’t want to ask but knows, if she’s to survive this, she must:

“How many _children_?”

Locke doesn’t answer.

She’s got her eyes narrowed now, peering up at Sandy like there’s no difference between them at all, like one of them isn’t a god and the other isn’t a demon, one strong and made stronger by rage while the other withers away, weak and sickly in bed, like she doesn’t realise Sandy could snap her neck with her bare hands if she—

If she—

Sandy shudders.

Below her, looking suddenly very fragile, Locke shudders too. Then, bolstered by her nervousness, she takes a breath and finds her voice.

“Okay,” she mutters. “Fine. You want me to tell you that I remembered you? You want me to say that you were special, that you almost broke through to my cold, hard, demonic heart? Made me soft, made me want to change my wicked old ways and become something better?”

“Would it be true?” Sandy asks.

“Not for a bloody second.”

She seems to take no pleasure in it, though. That’s unexpected. Sandy refuses to let it sway her, though. “Then tell me something that _is_ true.”

Locke sighs. “Suit yourself.” And perhaps Sandy is imagining it, the glimmer behind her eyes, pale water turning dark, but somehow she doesn’t think so. “You want to know why I showed you ‘kindness’ on the road? Why I treated you like a person instead of the wretch we both know you were? Maybe it was because I was thinking about the kindness _he_ showed you back then. The way he was with you, the way he was with me after, the whole screwed-up mess.”

“Nostalgia,” Sandy says, not as flatly as she would like; she wills her back to stay straight. “Yearning for what might have been, if you had been a better person.”

Locke shrugs. “If you want to call it that.” She doesn’t sigh, but there’s a hitch to her breathing that suggests some deeper feeling. “But do you really want to hear all that? All the lovey-dovey rubbish I felt watching my boy get all soft and paternal with you? I could talk your bloody ear off with that, my sweet, but do you really think it’ll change anything?”

“No,” Sandy concedes reluctantly. “But it would give me a reason not to hate you. And I want...” She tries to breathe, but her chest feels full to bursting, sorrow and anger clashing like lightning on the sea. “I want so badly not to hate you.”

“Can’t help you with that,” Locke says, just a touch too hastily. “Go ahead, hate me all you like, makes no damn difference to me. I told you before: I like what I am, and I like my life the way it is. I’m really not looking for some messy crisis of conscience to go and bugger it all up now.”

“But—”

“No.” And just like that, her whole body hardens to steel, more strength than anyone recovering from a near-death experience should possess. “It’s not my bloody problem any more. I’ve done everything you and your little posse have asked of me, and then some. You don’t get to drag me into some half-hearted little redemption story just to make yourself feel better about not hating me.”

“Not _just_ for that,” Sandy mutters. “For you as well.”

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetness, maybe one day you’ll even believe it.” She lowers her voice, confidential and a little bit personal. “I told you a thousand times that your feelings would be the end of you, didn’t I? And I have no intention of putting myself through the same fate. You want to spend your life pining and suffering over your precious little monk, be my guest, but you’re not dragging me down with you. So unless you’re looking for a cheery ‘I told you so’ and a cup of tea, we’re done here. You understand?”

Sandy reels, struck on a strangely visceral level. After everything she’s been through since they arrived, she shouldn’t be so affected by a weak, below-the-belt jab from an ailing demon.

And yet...

She straightens up, shoving the discomfort as far down inside herself as she can, and turns her voice to ice.

“You _do_ have a conscience,” she says. “Whether or not you acknowledge it, it is a part of you. You can’t hide from it forever.”

And she turns on suddenly trembling legs, and flees like her life depends on it.

*

Tripitaka is still being evasive when Sandy returns to her side.

It grates under her skin, the look on her face and the things she doesn’t say, but Sandy takes her company anyway because talking to Locke, even without any success, has made her head get loud again. It’s an effort, as it so often is after difficult moments or emotional exhaustion, to hold to her thoughts and keep herself intact.

She backs herself into the smallest corner she can find, shoulders pressed to the wall and hands pressed to her temples, and waits for the moment — the inevitable, predictable moment — when Tripitaka leans in and pulls them gently away.

Sandy only smiles in the deepest parts of herself, where she knows Tripitaka won’t be able to see it.

Aloud, she just says, “I won’t hurt myself, I promise.”

“I know.” Tripitaka exhales softly, then replaces Sandy’s hands with her own. Strong fingertips, gentle pressure, massaging small circles over the place where Sandy’s head is starting to ache again. “Better?”

“Mm.”

She closes her eyes, lets the sensation wash over her, lets it drain away some of the anger and misery, the need for violence still tightening her muscles and the inexplicable sorrow that tucked itself sneakily into her chest as she spoke with Locke. Her body is shivering, but her mind grows a little bit calmer under Tripitaka’s ministrations, just like it always does when she touches her. Even when things aren’t right between them, even when there are cracks or conflicts, moments of dissonance or discordance, still she has that effect.

Her hands, her touches, her presence.

Always.

It is wonderful for a moment, a too-short moment. But then Tripitaka pulls away, and Sandy’s eyes flutter open to find her staring again, wearing the same tearful look as before.

And just like that, the momentary quiet vanishes completely.

Sandy winces, feeling the dissonance resurface. “Tripitaka.”

Tripitaka’s expression twists a little, then softens. Her hands, still hovering awkwardly in the space between them, shift again to cup Sandy’s face, holding her close with such tenderness that Sandy’s whole body seems to tense and grow limber at the same time.

Tripitaka wets her lips; her eyes seem to dampen a little more too.

“You...” There is so much reverence in the word, so much raw, ragged feeling. It brushes against Sandy’s heart, grazing it, and she feels her bones quake as Tripitaka shuts her eyes and whispers, “You deserve so much more than you got.”

Sandy doesn’t know how to respond to that. Doesn’t know how to feel, either, in truth. A part of her wants to pull away, to put some distance between them until Tripitaka explains where the words came from, what inspired them and the tragedy glimmering beneath her eyelashes, but the contact is warming her and making her feel safe, and she has never been able to resist the beautiful friction of monk’s robes against her tattered, overworn rags.

“Tripitaka.” She swallows a stuttering breath, and her throat convulses against the heel of Tripitaka’s hand. “Please. What happened?”

Fingertips trembling against her jawline, Tripitaka finally opens her eyes. “I talked to Monica,” she says. “When I went to get lunch. About what happened. Why she... why you... how you ended up all alone.”

Sandy’s stomach drops into her boots. She pulls away, shrinks back against the wall, even more than she already is, and says, “Oh.”

Tripitaka doesn’t move, tries not to respond at all. Sandy knows it bothers her when she doesn’t let her touch her, when she takes away the physical contact — the one thing Tripitaka can offer with consistency, the one thing that always works when words fail them both — but she doesn’t let the rejection show. She just watches, gives Sandy the space she needs, keeps her hand suspended between them, palm facing up and fingers splayed, open, inviting, a permanent offer if Sandy needs to take it, if she needs the contact to ground her.

Probably will. But not yet. Not until—

 _Tell me,_ she doesn’t have the courage to say. But Tripitaka hears, and she does.

“It’s bad.” Quiet, careful. Like she’s trying to navigate a labyrinth rigged with traps. “I know it’s... I know you’re not allowed to know too much in advance about what happened to you. But this... Sandy, it’s bad.”

Sandy studies her for a long while, absorbing this. Her face is deeply lined, the pain making her look much older and still somehow younger than she is, than they both are. Her eyes are cloudy with grief, with a thousand raw feelings that were never meant to be hers.

Sandy wants to lift some of that burden from her shoulders, her tiny, human shoulders. So she bows her head, grants Tripitaka the freedom of not having to see her eyes, and says, “I know.”

Tripitaka’s breath catches. “You... what?”

“I know,” Sandy repeats, a little lower. “I knows it’s bad. Has to be, it’s the only possible explanation. Monica isn’t as cold as she pretends to be, and if I remember only one thing with clarity it’s how much she cared for me— for _her_. Even when she pretended she didn’t. Even when she was yelling at me for drowning her bedsheets and her floorboards. She cared, as deeply as she could afford to in such dangerous times. If she...” Her voice breaks; even after all this time, there is no more painful word in the world. “If she _abandoned_ me...”

“Sandy.” Tripitaka’s voice is breaking too, heavy with tears. “Sandy...”

Sandy shakes her head. Won’t let Tripitaka carry any more burdens that weren’t meant for her. “She’s not like my family,” she says hoarsely. “My old family. She wouldn’t have just thrown me out for being what I was. Not her. So if that happened... if she abandoned me too...” She swallows, letting the idea settle like a weight in her stomach. “...it must have been something bad.”

Just saying the words, her chest floods with ice-cold water, memory and loneliness clawing at the space between her ribs.

She reaches out, fumbling, finds Tripitaka’s waiting hand and holds on with a desperate strength. Tripitaka holds on just as tight, squeezing like she knows how much Sandy’s sanity depends on it right now, like she can feel her starting to—

“Breathe,” she whispers, and of course Sandy obeys. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Sandy nods, gulps just enough air to drown the water, then sighs.

“Of course it’s bad,” she says, leaning in until her forehead rests against their clasped hands. “It’s _always_ bad.”

Tripitaka leans in too, in and in, until her lips find the place where their fingers are laced together, where Sandy’s forehead is pressing.

“You survive,” she reminds her fervently, each syllable a kiss pressed to her knuckles, her fingers, her cheek. “Remember that. Everything that happened, even the worst parts. You survive and you grow and you... and you _thrive_.”

It’s only a meagre comfort, and it settles strangely, like a blanket made of some strange fabric that doesn’t agree with her skin.

She is still so afraid of that: of growth and survival, of the idea that she might _thrive_. Still afraid, even now, even after everything they’ve been through, that to thrive would mean placing herself completely in the hands of someone who already tried to leave her once before. It terrifies her, but Tripitaka’s kisses are intoxicating, little ripples of warmth and love that spread over her skin where they touch, soothing the itchy discomfort.

It is impossible not to want it, not to want _her_. Impossible not to close her eyes and imagine a future where she is not helpless and frightened and in pain, not broken and twisted and wrong. Impossible not to imagine herself whole and healthier, not to imagine Tripitaka holding her like this, tethering her and being her anchor, not because she has to but because she wants to, because she chooses to, because she—

Because she wants and chooses _her_.

It is so beautiful, and so frightening.

Sandy closes her eyes, lets Tripitaka breathe the life back into her pale, cold skin, lets her wash away the fear and the pain with her words and her kisses. Lets herself believe there is more for them than a port in this violent, terrible storm, that maybe, between them, they can make it a harbour, a haven, a—

 _Home_.

“I want to,” she says. “I want to thrive. With you. I want...” And she turns her head a little, lets Tripitaka’s wandering lips catch the sharp edge of her jaw. “But I...”

“I know,” Tripitaka whispers. “But it’s in the past. All of it.”

And she means the terrible things they’ve seen in their friends’ and enemies’ memories, the terrible things Sandy is only just starting to remember as parts of her life, her past, her trauma. And she means that other terrible thing, the one still looming on the horizon, Monica’s memory and one final abandonment. And she means—

And she means _them_.

She means the North Water, the moment they turned away from each other, the moment Tripitaka chose a lie over the truth, the moment Sandy chose to leave, for the first time in her life, before she could be abandoned yet again. And she means the fear of it happening again, of new scars on top of old ones, losses on top of losses, the bruises on her heart and the cracks in her mind, of watching, helpless and small, as the people she loves turn away and leave her alone, abandon her again and again and _again_. And she means—

And she means: _not this time, not any more, never again_.

And Sandy sobs, pure and open and for once with no pain, and she turns her head to hide her tears, to hide herself, to hide everything, completely, like she always does—

And Tripitaka turns too, and does not let her hide anything.

And she kisses the tears staining her cheeks, and she kisses the tears gathering salt-wet on her lashes, and she kisses—

 _Her_.

It lasts a moment and it feels like a lifetime, and when Sandy pulls back she’s breathless and bedraggled and wholly transformed, a grain of sand made into a precious stone.

Tripitaka is looking up at her like she’s the most beautiful thing in the world, or maybe the most fragile, and Sandy doesn’t know how to feel about that but she knows that for now, for once, all the anger and pain and fear are completely, utterly silent.

She touches her lips with shaking fingers. “Um.”

Tripitaka smiles. It is shaky too, tremulous and more tragic than touched.

“Yeah,” she whispers, and takes Sandy’s hands in hers. “So let’s face this thing, okay? You and me, together. Let’s bury the last little piece of your past, and start looking to the future.”

It is such an enormous word. _Future_. For so long, she was sure she’d never see it.

But the taste of Tripitaka’s kiss still lingers, the taste of promise and potential, of a thousand tomorrows, and for perhaps the first time, Sandy finds that she is not afraid.

“Yes,” she says, alive and warm and loved. “Let’s do that.”

*


	20. Chapter 20

*

Monica is edgy and uncomfortable when they arrive at the tavern.

She’s not the only one. 

Sandy clings to the memory of Tripitaka’s touches, her kisses, her warmth, of the love wrapping itself around her from the inside out, a shelter and a sanctuary from the storms lashing every other part of her. She clings to the memory of being unafraid, of feeling breathless and alive, of feeling like the future might be something she could see, could touch, could want. Of believing, for perhaps the first time in her life, that she might be able to thrive after all.

The tavern is mostly empty when they arrive, a few straggling patrons too deep in their cups to care too much about what’s happening around them. The quiet makes the room feel bigger than it is, makes the air feel heavier, more oppressive. It bears down like a lead weight on Sandy’s aching head, fills her lungs like the memory of ice water, makes her— 

She starts to cough.

Monica flashes her a sharp look. “None of that, now,” she chides. Trying to tease, Sandy can tell, but it doesn’t really work; she’s too nervous, too uncomfortable, and the echo of all that coughing still haunts them both. “My floors have had a lifetime of that already.”

Sandy has had a lifetime of it too, of pains in her chest and water everywhere, a lifetime that sometimes feels like ten lifetimes all piled on top of each other.

But she doesn’t tell Monica that. She just waits until her lungs stop seizing, then mumbles, “I’m sorry.”

And watches as the stoic, not-quite-teasing exterior crumbles, as Monica turns her face away so only her eyepiece is visible, as her shoulders shudder with a sigh as big as her body.

“None of that either,” she says, in a hoarse, jagged voice. “If I’ve told you once, my girl, I’ve told you a thousand times.”

Sandy looks to Tripitaka, unsure of how to respond to that. Social situations are hard enough at the best of times, even with people she knows very well, and this is so much harder than that; Monica’s words say one thing, fondness and humour, but her eye and her voice say something else entirely, and she doesn’t know how to interpret the clashing signals, doesn’t know what to do or say.

Doesn’t know anything, in fact, and a glance around the room makes it painfully clear that she is, once again, the only one.

There is pain everywhere, a ghostly presence descending slowly from the ceiling, a mocking phantom that only she can’t seem to see. Monica and Tripitaka, exchanging nervous, uncomfortable glances, with each other and then looking at her; the Shaman watching them both with thinned lips and a tight jaw. They all know more than she does, and she hates it, she hates her ignorance, she hates her stupid worthless hole-ridden mind, she hates—

Tripitaka squeezes her hand. Looks up at her with fear and grief in her eyes. Sandy feels her heart quake in her chest.

“How bad?” she asks, and doesn’t recognise her own voice at all. High with fear, with horror, and every eye in the room turns away from her. “How much pain, Tripitaka?”

The Shaman, lurking behind them like a shadow, clears his throat. “Do not tell her,” he barks. “You have come this far without tainting her memories. Do not start now.”

Tripitaka’s eyes grow wet, but she doesn’t turn away this time. She leans up and up, standing on her toes and lifting with her whole body, pressing a kiss to the corner of Sandy’s mouth. “The past is past,” she reminds her, as soft as a breath. “The pain is hers, not yours. And I’m here, and I’ll still be here when it’s over, and we’ll still be us, and you’ll still be thriving. The past can’t take anything away from the future, Sandy, okay?”

It’s not what Sandy wanted to hear, but she knows it’s all she’s going to get. For the best, of course, at least as far as her tattered mind is concerned. But still she can’t quite ignore the sting of rejection.

She turns to Monica, still hiding her face, her grief, her suffering, and she knows, even if she knows nothing else in all the world, that the pain they’re all feeling is not her fault, that she would never, _could_ never...

“Whatever you did to me,” she whispers, feeling raw, “I forgive you.”

Monica turns, mouth half-open, eye wide. Stares at her like she’s just made the pain a thousand times worse.

“Right,” she says, not to Sandy but to the Shaman. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

And she promptly turns her back on them all.

*

And then they’re back, the four of them, where it all began.

Monica’s bedroom, as small and cramped as it was the first time, and just as intimidating as well. Sandy remembers it twice now, once from the first time they did this, Monica in the bed, she and Tripitaka below it, the Shaman stood like a barrier between them, chanting and touching their faces, binding them all together with his magic... and a second time, years and years before all of this, when she was so small and the room was so unimaginably big.

She is neither of those people now. No longer the ignorant god with the broken mind and missing memories, so convinced that she had never set foot in this room before in her life, but no longer the frightened child either, the lost, lonely little girl with no idea of what she was becoming or what she was capable of. She is something different now, something new, stronger but no less scared, a little more whole and a little less brave.

She looks down, finds Tripitaka holding her hand again, just as tightly as she did the last time, and she feels comforted and protected and—

Still broken. Still frightened. But those other things as well.

Old, and also completely new.

She sits down on the floor, lets her shoulders press back against the hard wooden bedframe. Grounds herself in being here, in being present and at least mostly herself, in being able to tell the difference between the her that is here now and the _her_ that was here back then. Little victories and small steps, just like Tripitaka keeps telling her.

Tripitaka, who is holding her hand like she needs the contact as desperately as Sandy does, like she can feel the echoes of this place just as strongly too. And perhaps she can, at that; after everything they’ve been through together, shared memories and shared moments, who can say for certain?

“It’s over,” Tripitaka reminds her again, gentler and gentler every time she says it. “It’s over. It’s done. And you...” She glances up, locks her gaze with Monica, sat uncomfortably on the bed, and winces. “You’re not _her_ , okay? If you can’t remember anything else, try to remember that.”

Sandy thinks she understands what she means. She’s not small any more, of course, or helpless or frightened, but she’s also not abandoned. Not alone, not lost, not the wretched, lonely creature she became afterwards. The years of isolation, the part of her that believed for so long that it would never know anything but rejection and violence... there is no place for those things in a world where Tripitaka’s hand fits in hers.

“I’m not _her_ ,” Sandy says out loud, warmed by Tripitaka’s smile, enough that she can will herself to believe it. “Her pain is not my pain. Whatever she endured, I won’t have to.”

Tripitaka swallows hard. Looks up at Monica again, then squeezes Sandy’s hand.

“She was _broken_ ,” she says, and the word carries so much weight, so much power, coming from her; it’s a sort of acceptance, at long last, of everything Sandy has been trying to tell her, everything Tripitaka has been trying not to hear. “She was broken and scared and in the most terrible pain.”

“I know,” Sandy says in a ragged whisper. “But thank you for saying it.”

Tripitaka bites her lip, anguish burning her face. “Sandy—”

“Enough.” The Shaman, cutting through the emotions and the moment with his usual efficiency. Cutting off whatever Tripitaka was going to say, too, like he knows it was something important. “I have no desire to stand idly by and listen to you prattle on about your feelings. We begin now, or you may take your discussion elsewhere.”

Sandy nods. “I’m ready,” she breathes. “And I’m not afraid.”

Above her, shaking the bed, Monica shudders.

“Lucky you,” she says, blanching deathly pale as the Shaman begins his chanting. “Because I’m bloody terrified.”

**

_It was nearly a week before she began to give up hope._

_Days upon days spent watching the girl wither away in her bed, unconscious and unresponsive, a living corpse with only the barely-existent rhythm of her heartbeat as proof she was ever alive to begin with. Silent, motionless, dead in every way except the one that mattered; it wasn’t usually in Monica’s nature to be optimistic, but she held on to hope for as long as she could, even going so far as to mutter a prayer or two — to whom, even she couldn’t say for sure — in the moments when her faith began to falter._

_It did no good, of course. Even if she knew where to turn her prayers, even if she knew what to do with the lifeless body of an unwakeable god, she doubted it would have made the least bit of difference; she had lived too long and seen too much to ever hold out hope for a happy ending for such a wretched little thing. Some fates were just set in stone, some lives simply destined to end in cruelty and injustice, a thousand years too soon. A cynic like Monica knew this too well to ever truly believe in anything else._

_Still, though, for all the good it did, she tried._

_She sent word to the monks, of course, in the vain hope that they’d have access to resources she herself did not, some poultice or potion or centuries-dead magic spell, lost to all but the most scholarly. Didn’t expect anything to come of it, really, but when they showed up on her doorstep late into the fourth or fifth day, still, despite her better judgement, she felt her tattered old heart skip a beat._

_She didn’t bother with a greeting. Just waved them hastily towards the stairs and muttered, “You’d better have something brilliant up those oversized sleeves of yours, because I’m fresh out of ideas.”_

_Out of patience, too, and damn near out of hope. But they didn’t need to know that part._

_They crowded around the bed, the same three as before, though the tone was entirely different. Her two old friends, familiar faces that would normally bring her some comfort, and their adolescent little Scholar as well, though why they thought he’d be useful she had no idea; she hadn’t seen the young lad since the day after Sandy was taken, when he showed up bright and early for his morning lesson and she tearfully told him to turn around and go back home._

_He was as stoic and sombre as the other two as he gazed down at Sandy’s drawn, lifeless face. Even more so, maybe; he was, after all, the one who’d spent the most time with her. Gotten to know her in a way his older and supposedly wiser brethren hadn’t bothered to. Seeing her like that, a half-dead shell with the soul sucked out... well, it had to hurt him nearly as badly as it did Monica. She wondered if he felt it like a personal failure too, like she did._

_She didn’t ask. Couldn’t spare the poor boy the inevitable grief, but she could spare him that._

_He kept his distance while the others moved in close to examine the body. Too real, perhaps, or else he was just squeamish. Couldn’t blame him if he was; Monica had needed to suck up her own courage more than a few times over the past few days, and it still came hard, seeing the poor girl so utterly ruined._

_“No sign of life?” the Sage asked, bending to study the girl’s expressionless, empty face._

_Monica grunted, waving a careless hand. “See for yourself.”_

_They spent a frankly ridiculous amount of time doing precisely that. Examining her from every conceivable angle, checking her pulse, her breathing, her pupils, studying her like she was little more than a cadaver rotting on a mortician’s slab, just one more dead god to probe and prod for information. Like the poor thing hadn’t suffered enough of that degradation already. Like that wasn’t the reason she was like this in the first place, demon vultures and their hunger, their twisted need to suck the marrow out of every bone that passed their way._

_“Are you done poking at her?” she demanded, forcing the thought aside. “She’s still alive, you bloody idiots. Stop acting like she’s already—”_

_But of course she couldn’t say it. Who could?_

_Not that it mattered. After all that prodding and study, they had nothing useful to say anyway. The Sage only shook his head, muttering that they were monks and not magicians, and his brother the Scribe quietly made the point that any magic potent enough to heal a broken god would probably invoke more power than their human bodies could handle in the first place._

_So far as they were concerned, as sad as the situation was, that was the end of it._

_“A tragedy, of course,” said the Scribe, bowing his head. “But you can see the problem clearly enough for yourself. If she is unable to wake under her own power, what chance do we mere mortals have?”_

_Monica was furious, though a part of her understood that was unfair; it wasn’t his fault the facts weren’t to her liking, much as she wished it was._

_“So that’s it?” she snapped, unable to temper her voice. “Just put on your coats and leave?”_

_“What more would you have us do?” His voice was tight with grief, though it sounded nothing like her own: the loss of a great asset, a boon to the resistance, no more and no less. “It would hardly be prudent to offer funeral rites when the body has not yet... that is to say, when she hasn’t...”_

_He stopped, no doubt scared into silence by Monica’s hard look. “Finish that sentence,” she growled, “and you’ll be performing your own bloody funeral rites.”_

_“As you say.” To his credit, or perhaps his detriment, he did not take offence. “My point, however, remains.”_

_“Aye, of course it bloody does.” She waved a hand, disgusted and furious. “If you can’t do anything to help, get your sorry backsides out of my tavern before I do something we’ll all regret.”_

_It was the first time in her long life she’d ever spoken that way to a monk. Some things were sacred, even to a bitter old cynic like herself, and the monks of the order, the robes and the vows that went with them... those were more than just sacred, they were holy. One of the only damn things left in the world worth treating with respect. On another day, in another moment, she might have regretted taking such a sharp tone. Might even have bowed her head and scrounged up an apology, too._

_Not today. Today, she couldn’t see the backs of the arrogant old bastards quick enough. They could consider themselves lucky that she didn’t whip out the frying pan and chase them out onto the street herself._

_The Sage and the Scribe left quickly, familiar enough with Monica’s moods by now to know that they had overstayed their welcome. Understanding, too, if the sickly-sympathetic looks on their faces were anything to go by, that it was deeply personal this time, that the girl was more than just a lost god to her. It frustrated her, though she’d never admit it, that her poor manners didn’t bother them, that they weren’t as upset by her outburst as she was by—_

_Everything._

_Dammit._

_She turned back to the bed, to the still-lifeless body withering away under her care, and cursed softly under her breath._

_“So much for keeping you safe, Sandy girl,” she sighed, bowing her head to hide her tears. “Can’t even wake you up.”_

_A hand on her shoulder, as heavy as her thoughts, dragged her out of her reverie. Monica jolted and spun, one first already raised, only to find herself face-to-face with the Scholar. Fool boy, she thought with needless spite. Should’ve headed home with his idiot brethren, if he knew what was good for him._

_“You have kept her alive,” he said in his high, barely-broken little voice. Monica glared, every nerve in her body a threat to step back; he did, but only just a little. “She’s still breathing,” he went on, dogged like so many fresh-faced youths were these days. “That means the life hasn’t gone out of her. There’s hope yet, yes?”_

_“Not much of it,” Monica muttered, annoyed in spite of herself by his optimism, “if your elders and betters are to be believed.”_

_The Scholar nodded, mostly to himself, and shuffled his feet. Waiting with typical impatience for permission to approach once more; she gave it reluctantly, and made a point of keeping herself between his body and the girl’s. No reason to think he had any ill intention, of course — she’d seen the way he was with her, the two of them learning together and squabbling like competitive siblings — but better safe than sorry when the kid was unconscious and with no means of defending herself. She’d been through enough already at the hands of people who ‘knew what was best for her’. Never again, not while Monica still had breath of her own._

_“They mean well,” he said, when he’d gotten close enough to take a look at Sandy’s too-still form. “But there are things they don’t know.”_

_“Things they don’t want to know, you mean,” Monica snapped, unable to keep the bitter sting from reaching her voice. She knew as well as he did that it wasn’t as simple as a lack of understanding; the older generation of monks and academics were simply too set in their ways, unwilling to adapt or adjust or even to try. Young blood like his would be necessary, she knew, if the resistance was to stand a chance. “Do you have a point to make, boy, or are you just trying to test my patience?”_

_He held up his hands, a gesture of surrender she recognised from their lessons. Him, sullen and irritable, spitting curses at his parchment while Sandy breezed through page after page; Monica, towering over them both, warning him that she’d take the damn thing away if he didn’t mind his tongue and speak in a more monk-appropriate, child-friendly manner._

_There was none of that sullen petulance in him now, though. He was bright-eyed, enthusiastic, forgetting himself in his haste to help._

_“I just mean...” He stumbled over the words, but didn’t let the clumsiness slow him down; in spite of herself, Monica found his eagerness somewhat infectious. He might not be much of a monk, but he’d grow up to be one hell of a leader if he played his cards right. “You taught us... that is, me... a lot. Things they aren’t willing to learn. They think their education is behind them, think there’s nothing left for them to learn. But I... that is, you taught me their language. Her language, I mean.” He looked down at Sandy, unable or maybe unwilling to hide his sorrow, then pressed on in a rush: “There are texts I can read that the others can’t. If you give me a few days, perhaps I might...”_

_Monica snorted. “What a little cock-eyed optimist you are.”_

_She didn’t point out that her own heart had stalled a bit too._

_“We have dozens of old texts at the monastery,” he went on. “The elders might not be able to read them, but I can. You taught me well enough for that, at least. One of them might hold some ancient magic, some incantation or spell or poultice...”_

_Monica didn’t believe that for a second. Idealism without any foundation in reality; she’d learned too many times the dangers in chasing after phoenix feathers and dragon eggs when lives were at stake. That way lay only disappointment and misery, and if not for the big-eyed, hopeful look on his face — so much like Sandy at her most endearing — she would have shot the idea down right then and there. No place for foolish hearts or daydreams in her house, thank you very much._

_Ah, but, those blasted eyes of his! How could she deny him, still blithe enough to believe there was good in the world despite all the evidence to the contrary? He was young too, and idealistic, and exactly the sort of lad the resistance would need if it wanted to survive the dark days ahead of them. Hope was already such a rare and precious commodity these days; what kind of a monster would she be to snuff it out now?_

_“All right,” she said, and let her sigh speak the cynicism her voice would not. “A couple of days, then. See what you can dig up, if anything. I’ll keep watch over her until then.” She turned back to Sandy, still so lifeless, and blinked back tears. “But don’t let your superiors catch you at it. You know what they’d say.”_

_His grin, young and bright and so damn idealistic, lit up the whole room._

_“Don’t worry,” he said. “I learned from the best.”_

*

_True enough, as it turned out._

_The lad was bloody good at what he did, there was no denying that. He returned, as promised, a couple of days later, with a tome as wide as his chest and a great big grin on his face._

_“There are miracles in these texts,” he whispered, once they were safely locked away in Monica’s bedroom; a quick study despite his youthful impatience, he knew better by now than to talk about these things in public. “Some even suggest that the Monkey King—”_

_“Learned enough to educate me now, have you?” Monica interrupted sharply, waving a careless hand. “If I wanted a bloody history lesson, I’d’ve called on a real scholar, now, wouldn’t I?”_

_He cleared his throat, a little prickly at being chastened, then quickly recovered himself and set the tome down on the table with typical academic reverence._

_“Here,” he said, flipping it open to a particularly dog-eared page. “A spell to banish the sleep of the dead. I don’t... that is, ah, you’ve not told me what was done to her...”_

_“If I had any idea myself,” Monica muttered sourly, “I would have.”_

_“Of course.” Sensing the darker feelings there but wise enough to know that it wasn’t his place to push for more, the Scholar cleared his throat. “I only mean, without knowing the details, we won’t be able to heal whatever injury she may have suffered to leave her in this condition. But if we’re able to wake her, at least, she might... that is... her kind are known for their resilience, yes? So perhaps...”_

_He trailed off, as though afraid of being too hopeful, worried that she would give him a wallop with her frying pan for such a fool-hearted display. A pretty rational fear, most days, but Monica had more important things on her mind today than disciplining a naive little idealist._

_Especially one who’d brought her a sliver of hope._

_She nudged him aside, none too gently, and squinted down at the book. The parchment was ancient, cracked and halfway disintegrated, the ink faded almost beyond legibility; Monica had to strain her eyes to make out the words, much less make them make sense. Most she knew, a fair few she didn’t; she could scarcely imagine how much work the Scholar must have put in to piece together a coherent translation from the scanty scraps of language she’d managed to teach him._

_In any case, her own knowledge was far from inexhaustible. From what she could make out, the spell seemed viable enough — an incantation for waking the unwakeable, or so it claimed to be — and, though she was no expert in ancient magics, she couldn’t see anything immediately harmful in the list of ingredients._

_Not that it mattered either way, she supposed sadly. Insidious or not, it could hardly do any more harm to the little thing than had already been done. If it killed her at least there would be an end to her purgatory, and if it did nothing at all then her body would likely finish the job by itself in due time._

_If, however, the blasted thing actually worked..._

_Well, that would be a whole new kettle of fish._

_Whatever Locke and her demon friends had done to the poor girl, it had made enough of a mark to leave her dead in everything but the name, and she’d hardly been a portrait of good health before then. Monica was not looking forward to having to help her to heal from this on top of everything else she’d been through. She couldn’t help wondering, though she’d deny it in a heartbeat if anyone asked, if maybe they’d all be better off if the spell just killed her outright._

_A terrible thought, that, and one she forced herself to shake off before it could dig its claws in and take root somewhere unpleasant. She took a couple of moments to familiarise herself with the spell, mouthing the words a couple of time to catch their rhythm, their meaning, then braced herself, and looked back up into the Scholar’s hopeful young eyes._

_“All right, then,” she said, keeping her voice as even as she could while her heart was trembling. “I suppose it’s worth a shot. You up for getting your hands dirty, boy?”_

_He didn’t even need to think about it. Just rolled up his sleeves like a common labourer, looked down at their lifeless charge, and said, “Always.”_

_In spite of herself, in spite of everything, Monica smiled. “Good lad, you are.”_

_Maybe there was hope for the old ways after all._

*

_They ran a bath, as hot as they could make it._

_Vague in the manner of all ancient things, the spell called for a tether, an item or object that held significance or value to the target, and it was with some shame that Monica realised she didn’t actually know of anything like that._

_In all the time she’d spent with her, she’d never thought to ask, never taken a moment to get to know Sandy, to find out what she liked, what mattered to her. She’d made a point of not asking any questions at all, as a point of fact, for fear of getting too attached to an urchin bound for either greatness or tragedy. And now, in the moment where it truly mattered, she found she knew nothing of what made the little urchin tick._

_The only thing she could think of, the only thing Sandy had ever shown any connection to was water. The bane of both their existences, she couldn’t keep the stuff inside, couldn’t keep it hidden, couldn’t keep it from pouring out of her with every ragged, rattling breath; it had tormented them both, day and night._

_Not much of a tether, that, and certainly nothing Monica would call pleasant, but it was the only thing she had. Water, and the great bloody mess that it made._

_Besides, with no other immediate option, it would just have to do._

_They stripped her down, submerged her completely, and all the while she remained as still and silent as stone. Not a hitch in her breath, not a shift in her body, she didn’t move a muscle or an eyelash. No sign that any part of her, conscious or otherwise, was the least bit aware of what was happening to or around her. Monica tried to whisper some meagre words of comfort, some hollow reassurance that they were trying to help, that she would be well if things turned out right, but everything she did and said was met with the same mindless, never-ending silence._

_Grief was not a new emotion to her, but it was one she’d pushed away and cast aside many, many years ago. It was not a pleasant thing, feeling it resurface now, for a child she’d sworn she wouldn’t care for, a miserable brat she’d tried so hard to send away before it could come to this._

_They performed the spell together, she and the Scholar. Monica tossed the ingredients, one by one, into a nearby brazier, then watched the young monk carefully as he clutched the tome to his chest and started to chant._

_At first, nothing._

_Monica watched the water, searching in desperate vain for signs of life, of stirring consciousness or a shift in breath, but for a few long, excruciating moments, there was nothing but disappointment._

_And then, in less than the time it took to open her mouth, everything._

_A cacophony of sound and madness, a flood of water so violent that Monica was thrown backwards, a roar like thunder as Sandy burst up to the surface, a corpse returned to life._

_Awake._

_Alive._

_She was like a living ghost, paler than anyone Monica had ever seen, shivering down to her bones despite the scalding heat of the water. Eyes staring sightlessly, bulging but blind, she seemed to look right through Monica, right through everything, and her mouth was twisted in a silent, water-clogged scream. Her chest heaved, the skin pulled tight across her ribs, even skinnier than she was before; gasping and choking, she clutched at the rim of the bath and tried and tried and tried to speak._

_Watching her, Monica’s instincts took over. Oblivious to the hot water, to the ragged, haunted, broken look in the girl’s empty eyes, oblivious to everything except the shivering and the strain as she fought to breathe, she rushed over to Sandy’s side and threw her arms around her like they were family, not the one that had thrown her away but the one she deserved, like they were connected, like the sight of her alive again had somehow breathed the life back into a part of Monica as well._

_“Sandy girl!” She was sobbing, and she couldn’t even care that the half-wit mini-monk was a witness to it all. “My poor girl, you’re safe now, you’re home...”_

_Over and over again, sentimental heartfelt nonsense that she would have clipped herself round the ear, not so long ago, for ever thinking. She held her close, unmindful of the water soaking through her clothes, held her like both their lives depended on it._

_And for a too-brief, too-sweet moment, she was overwhelmed by such fierce devotion, such overpowering protectiveness and love that she couldn’t see or hear or feel anything else._

_And then, as though someone had ignited a spark, Sandy began to struggle._

_Monica let go immediately, of course, thinking she must be having some trouble breathing, or that the physical contact might be triggering some traumatic reaction. She didn’t know what might have happened to her in that hellish place, couldn’t even begin to imagine what sorts of horrors she might have endured at the hands of demons who saw her kind only as a resource to be farmed._

_“It’s all right,” Monica said gently, inching back to give the girl some space. She tried to catch her eye, to find some flicker of recognition, of understanding, of anything. “You’re safe now, Sandy girl. You’re home and you’re safe, and you’re—”_

_Sandy, unseeing and unhearing, screamed._

_A gruesome horror of a sound, it tore through Monica’s bones and nerves like a hot blade. Would have given her nightmares enough, she thought, if that was the end of it, if the only thing she’d have to take to her grave was the memory of that dreadful, hellborn scream._

_But it wasn’t._

_Not even close._

_The first scream was followed by a second, and then Sandy launched herself out of the bath like she was possessed, blind and terrified and utterly out of control. The water rose up behind her, a wall of force and violence ready to drown everything in its path, and there was nothing Monica could do but stare, horrified and halfway out of her own mind as the wave broke and hurled itself at her, a scalding, searing torrent that knocked her flat onto her back._

_Boiling, breathless, she tried to stand—_

_But then Sandy was on top of her._

_Still blind, still empty, still—_

_Still screaming._

_And Monica tried to struggle, frightened — really, genuinely frightened — for the first time in more years than she could count, terrified beyond words of this soaking, shivering, rake-thin wreck of a girl, this haunted little ghost who was more bones than body. Terrified of this abandoned child, this sick, scared, helpless little creature who had come to her as if by fate, who had curled up in her bed and made a home in her heart, who had warmed to her and warmed her in turn, who—_

_Who was lashing out, unseeing and unknowing and uncontrollable, a god more than a girl, a beast made of bubbling, boiling water, a savage thing forged in fear and pain—_

_And now Monica was screaming as well, not in fear but in pain, excruciating and unbearable, agony digging in deep as those flying, flailing fingers found her face, nails raking like claws—_

_Until Sandy wasn’t the only one blinded by her nightmares—_

_Until she wasn’t the only one blinded by her pain, her fear—_

_Until she wasn’t the only one who was blind._

**

“No!”

Sandy bursts to the surface strangled by screams, breaking out of the memory like her younger self breaking to the surface of the water, breaking to the surface of her ruined mind, breaking and breaking and _breaking_ —

But she is herself, not _her_ , and she will not—

She will _not_ —

The screams cut off, in her head and in her throat, and she—

She—

Her mind is reeling, churning, shattering all over again as if for the first time, her heart shattering too, for entirely different reasons. Her body is shaking, shuddering, shivering, the cold and the horror tearing through her like sobs, like screams, lost and broken and in pain, understanding nothing but the need to survive, to not be held down, to not be hurt again—

Hot water scalding her tongue, burning her skin, boiling her even as she shivers and shakes and feels like she’s frozen.

Blood under her nails, as hot as the water.

Blood and skin and—

And—

Hauling herself up onto her hands and knees, she vomits.

Tries to, anyway.

There’s nothing in her stomach but acid and violence, but her body turns itself inside-out trying to reject both of those things at once. Trying to reject the memory, too, the spectral sensations and emotions, the pain, the fear, the disorientation. Trying to reject what she was, what she _did_ , but it won’t work because there’s nothing left, nothing inside her body or her mind, nothing—

She feels Tripitaka leaning over her, her hands tracing their old familiar patterns across her back. Used to this by now, the heaving, the brutality, the horror, she knows exactly what to do to make it less awful, knows how to soothe and soften the spasms, how to soothe and soften Sandy as well, helping her to keep breathing until the moment has passed and the violence has washed itself away.

In the deafening silence that follows, no-one speaks.

Not even the Shaman has anything to say this time, and he’s usually the first to point out when he feels she’s being needlessly dramatic. He seems to be waiting — they all are, holding their collective breath — for the moment she lifts her head and looks up.

She doesn’t.

Can’t.

If she looks up, if she sees _her_ —

Her stomach heaves again. Still futile, still empty, a few more pointless, worthless spasms. It does nothing but draw out the quiet, stopping her from voicing the awful, nightmarish things swirling around inside her head.

Tripitaka eases her upright when it’s over. Turns her around so they’re facing each other and forces Sandy to look her in the eye. Cups her chin and tilts it, running her thumb along the curve of her jaw. Says, so softly it’s practically a whisper, “Sandy.”

Sandy moans, biting down on a sob, on another spasm, another scream, another—

“You...” Her voice sounds hoarse, thick with nausea, razed raw with pain and horror. “You said it was bad. You never said _I_ was bad.”

“You weren’t,” Tripitaka tells her. She’s tearful, and it makes Sandy want to pull away, to hide from the distorted reflection of her own face, pale and drawn and monstrous. “You weren’t _bad_ , Sandy. You were confused and traumatised and you were in pain. Your mind was...” She swallows heavily. Sandy’s throat constricts, clenching its sympathy. “Your mind was in pieces. You can’t be blamed for that.”

“I hurt her.” She braces herself, then slowly, fearfully looks up. Finds Monica watching them, face twisted in mnemonic agony, clutching her eyepiece with one hand. “I hurt you.”

“You did more than that, my girl,” Monica says, very quietly.

She slides the eyepiece up onto her forehead, exposing the mutilated eye beneath. Fused halfway shut, little left but scar tissue, almost blind without the aid of the contraption. It’s a terrible sight to behold, and all the more so knowing now — _remembering_ — exactly where it came from, remembering how it happened, what she did, how she—

Sandy’s stomach gives another dangerous, violent lurch. Tripitaka holds her close, rocks her a bit to try and settle the spasms; it’s futile, Sandy can tell, but she lets it happen anyway because the contact is all that stands between her and the abyss.

“It wasn’t you,” Tripitaka says. “It wasn’t even really _her_. She didn’t know what she was doing.”

Sandy doesn’t look at her. Can’t look at anything but Monica, her eye, her face, the quiet pain, the shades of emotion that she’s in no condition to read. Hard to tell if she’s angry, if she’s upset, if she’s frightened. Hard to know any part of what she’s feeling, what anyone would feel after reliving such a dreadful thing.

“It _was_ me,” Sandy rasps. She’s shivering, hot and cold at the same time, sweat breaking out all over her body. “Doesn’t matter that I wasn’t myself. Doesn’t matter that I didn’t know. I still did it. To the one person in all the world who ever showed me kindness, the one person who ever cared for me. I did that, I—”

She starts to retch again, as useless as before. Sighing, Tripitaka turns her around, rubs her back as her shoulders shake and shake and shake.

Monica waits until she’s done before she tries to speak again. Voice low and tight, her tone impossible to interpret; when Sandy looks up, she’s pulling her eyepiece back down into place, hiding the damage, the evidence.

“We never should have woken you with magic.” The weight of guilt sounds almost as heavy on her as it feels on Sandy; she hates that more than she will ever be able to say. “That idiot friend of yours never told me what they’d done to you. How the bloody hell was I to know that your mind was gone? How the hell was I supposed to know that you were—”

“Broken,” Tripitaka says again, in a reverent, breathless sob.

Sandy whimpers, feeling her bones and nerves shudder in rhythm with the word, each syllable like a physical blow. She’s only just starting to get her wrecked, retching body back under control, but her insides still feel warped and ruined, sick in so much more than the physical. It is disorienting, to hear Tripitaka say that word, the one she’s hated and refuted for so long, to say it with power and understanding, and never once flinching from what it truly means.

“Aye,” Monica mutters, a little less charitable. “If you’d care to call it that.”

“I do,” Sandy croaks. “What I was, what I still I am.”

“Not for long,” the Shaman murmurs, interjecting in his usual silken manner. “Not if I can help it.”

It’s the first thing he’s said since they came out of Monica’s mind. Perhaps he senses that this moment goes deeper than he can fathom, perhaps he’s also a little shaken by what they’ve just seen; hard to know where a demon would draw that line, and he’s always been particularly difficult to read. Either way, he’s wisely kept his distance until now, letting them process without comment, not pushing as he usually would for them to continue or heed him.

He approaches her now, though. Slowly, cautiously, like he understands he’s stepping into a sacred, fragile space. He’s so connected to them all, and to Sandy especially, perhaps he also senses how close she is to another breakdown, to toppling over the edge and losing herself once again in the darkest, most shattered corners of her memory, of a nightmarish moment she’s only just beginning to remember, the details crashing back to her with dazzling, dizzying clarity.

For the first time since this began, he doesn’t touch her without permission. He crouches in front of her, instead, maybe an arm’s length away, and waits with uncharacteristic patience for her to invite him closer.

She doesn’t.

Not him, not anyone. Can’t let other people close, not when she’s feeling like this, so untethered, so close to drowning. Only Tripitaka, and only because she is the one person in all the world that Sandy trusts to keep her from losing herself in what she’s feeling, the only person in the world who can stop her from becoming _that_.

“No,” she says to the Shaman; the word is a tremor. “Don’t touch me. Not now.”

He raises an irritated brow, but concedes to keep his distance. Respect for her personal space at long last, or perhaps a part of him expects her to go after his eyes as well.

The thought makes her feel sick, but she doesn’t start to heave again. Her mind may be splitting itself apart, but she will hold her body together if it kills her.

“As you wish,” the Shaman says at last, oblivious to her discomfort, or simply choosing to ignore it. “Then use your words. Tell me, in as much detail as you can, what you remember.”

She thinks. It’s difficult, and it hurts terribly. Not because she can’t touch her memories this time, but for the first time because she _can_ , because they’re there and present and in her her, because she knows and she remembers and she _feels_ —

Too much.

Pieces of what she was, the shattered-glass shards of a soul, a body, a person. Echoes, voices, her own and other people’s, too low to make out. Indistinct shapes, bodies and faces she both does and doesn’t know, cracks and splinters and sharp edges. Little fractures of half-light cutting through the murk and gloom of her memory, indistinct but if she looks at them the right way, head tilted, body held still, she can almost make out—

“Water.” The word wrenches out of her like he’s just reached in and dredged it up from her lungs. “Water everywhere. Too much, too hot. So hot, boiling, bubbling. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. Didn’t know where, didn’t know...” She can feel something pressing, tugging at the edges of her mind, can’t figure out whether it’s him or _her_ , the Shaman or her younger self. “Didn’t know anything. Just pain in my head, so much _pain_ , so much, so much...”

Stops, shaking her head. Shaking all over.

She remembers and she doesn’t. _Her_ , young and lost, shattered into pieces on the inside, blind with pain and confusion. She couldn’t see anything, only shapes and shadows, the bulk of a body she was so sure was going to hurt her. But she sees it from a distance too, watches it happen through Monica’s eyes, old and wise and whole, knowing what was real, knowing what she was doing, knowing what she _did_.

Her worst nightmare.

Her greatest fear, right from the very beginning.

To hurt a friend.

To lose control, lose her mind, and hurt a friend.

No restraint, no awareness of the world around her or the one inside. Nothing. Just reflex, violence, the instinct to survive, blind with fear and pain, blood and skin under her nails, Monica screaming her name—

But she didn’t know the name was hers.

Didn’t know anything. Only knew that she was terrified, that nothing made sense, that everything was sharp and dangerous, that everyone that had ever touched her had tried to hurt her. Emptied of everything except her instincts, her hands transformed into weapons, her body gleaming like a blade, the terror pounding inside her, the irrepressible need to—

 _Run_.

She stands. Sways on her feet. The room blurs, spins, sways, and for just a second she’s in a different tavern, stuck in a different moment, watching the world disappear around her, losing herself and letting someone else convince her that she was just drunk.

A small hand gripping her arm. A young face, dark and lined with worry, frowning up into her eyes.

 _Tripitaka_ , holding her and grounding her and saying her name so clearly, with such passion and warmth and faith that Sandy has no choice but to recognise it and know that it is hers.

Even if she doesn’t want to.

“I hurt her,” she chokes. The only truth, the only thing that makes sense to her right now, the only thing in the whole world that matters. “I hurt her, I made her blind, I—”

“Only half-blind, thank you very much.” Monica, glowering with forced wryness, and the sight of her almost drives Sandy back down to her knees. “And your g— your _monk_ is right. You weren’t yourself. What they did to you... what _we_ did, waking you up like that, messing around with things we didn’t understand...” She sighs, and suddenly she looks about a thousand years old. “You can’t be blamed for that, my girl. Any of it.”

Sandy shakes her head. “I remember it now. The fear, the pain. Your body over mine, like... like a great, looming shadow. I thought you wanted to hurt me. Like...”

Like _he_ did.

Pigsy.

Her _friend_.

And her mind bends, trying to make sense of that.

A friend who hurt her, a friend she then hurt in turn. She didn’t know either of them back then, didn’t know Pigsy for the man he became, didn’t recognise Monica for the kind soul she was, didn’t understand anything.

But now she does.

And that should make it easier.

Remembering now, all grown up into something strong and powerful, a god with a purpose, broken only in the places she didn’t know about. It should be easier to pull away the things that cause pain, to pluck out the thorns that stick and dig in deep when she sees what Pigsy has become and remembers what he was. Should be easier to detach the parts of her that recognise Monica now, that know her and trust her and would never, ever do her harm, to shut off that side of herself and see only the girl with the broken mind who did not know and could not understand.

But she is both of those things, and broken twice over — _then_ , her mind destroyed by what was done to do it, and _now_ , scarred and scratched up by memories she’s lost and found — and she can’t tell the difference between the two, the girl and the god, the child who was scared and helpless and hurt, and the caged creature with blood under its fingernails.

And she wonders if it matters, in the end, which version of her did what. Which version woke in a bathtub and clawed her friend’s eye out, and which one woke in a nameless forest countless years later and almost did the same thing all over again. The same moment, relived over and over and over, and she can’t escape it, no matter how much she grows, no matter how much good she does, no matter how much she lets herself pretend and imagine that she is not a monster.

She remembers it so clearly, that night in the forest, the scratches she carved out of Pigsy’s face. So close to his eye, she thought, and was so afraid of what damage she might have done if the others hadn’t been there to hold her down. And now she knows, now she remembers... and, oh, she wishes she could forget.

She yanks herself free of Tripitaka’s grasp, looks her in the eye, as well as she can. It’s hard to make out her face when her vision is filled with tears and confusion, but she won’t let herself turn away. She can give her that, at least.

“I have to go,” she says. “I need to be somewhere safe. Somewhere I can’t—”

“You won’t.” Tripitaka is crying too, her tears catching and reflecting the light like little stars. “Sandy, please. You _are_ safe. I promise.”

“Yes.” Reluctantly, she does turn away. Has to, or she’ll drown in those starlit, tear-filled eyes, drown and drown, and maybe never come back to the surface. “Safe. Until I lose myself again. Until I go mad and hurt someone else that I care about.” She swallows, more terrified of herself now than she ever was of Pigsy or Locke or anyone else. “Would you wait until I blind _you_ , Tripitaka?”

And that—

Saying it, feeling it, picturing it—

She closes her eyes.

Summons her powers, the one part of herself she can still control, the part of herself that is made to shroud and protect, to make herself less visible, less tangible, less of everything that’s dangerous.

And with all the strength and speed she has, a lifetime spent honing it alone, she _runs_.

*

And as she runs, she remembers.

Still fragmented, still confused, still broken. Chiaroscuro, like little shafts of light cutting through the darkest shadows, flickers and flashes and ghosts. Bursts of clarity, shimmering shapes, sounds, senses, her nerves flooding with sensation for a fraction of a second, and then it all shuts down completely, leaving her hollow and numb and raw.

She ran then too. Like this but it was new. Her powers, awake inside of her for the first time, flaring and bursting to life under her skin, water and air and mist and fog, the shimmering blue, the blistering speed, protecting her, shielding her, keeping her safe from the world that had tried again and again to hurt her and break her and destroy her. Her body coming alive, even as her mind broke, coming awake to the power blooming and blossoming inside her, to everything she could be, everything she would have to be if she wanted to survive.

Instinct. Uncontrolled just like the rest of her, self-preservation just like the violence, the hunger, but it was different. A shroud, a blanket, the cool mist wrapping itself around her like a warm embrace. The only one she would feel for many, many years.

It carried her underground then, and it carries her back there again now, her body following its own reflexes, its own long-dead instincts, the half-light of memory carrying her back to the only place it knows is safe.

Into the dark, the dank, the desolate. Into solitude and isolation, to the cold stone and dripping water, to the secret voices of creatures no-one else ever heard; they would protect her and she would protect them in turn. To her sewer, her sanctuary, the one place in the world untouched by the monsters who wanted to break her.

 _Then_.

Then, she hid. Cowered in the cold and the dark, terrified of the world above, of the lurking shadows and the bodies, human and demon, that threw them. Confused and lost, everything in pieces and fractures, the broken shards leaving bloody fingerprints inside her aching head. She didn’t know anything, couldn’t remember who she was or how she’d got there, could only remember the single unshakeable truth: that the world was not safe, that it wanted to do the most horrible things to her, that the only thing left to do was hide.

It was the only thing she could hold onto, the only thing she had left inside her: a disjointed voice whispering at her to stay still and stay silent, to keep out of sight, to hide, hide, hide. _Stay hidden, Sandy girl. Don’t let them find you. If they find you, they’ll hurt you._

And she knew that it was true, but she couldn’t remember why.

 _Now_.

Now, she hides as well, but for very different reasons. Unafraid of the world and its monsters, of demons or gods or humans; she has grown and she has evolved and she has become powerful. It’s been years since anyone scared her, years since she valued her life highly enough to want to protect it. She knows what she is, she knows who she is. And she knows that she is strong.

Too strong.

 _Dangerous_.

Blood on her hands, leeching the life from the skin. Staining her insides, her bones and her nerves and her organs, soaking through all of her until she can’t see anything else. So much blood, so much violence; the things she’s done are so much worse than the things she was once so frightened of.

And so she hides in her old home, the one she made for herself, a sanctuary stitched together from shadows and built on bones.

Hides, not for herself, the way she did then, but for them, for her friends, for the few good people she now knows exist. The people she might hurt, the people she already did. The ones who have hurt her, too. The thought of them fills her head with violence, fills her mouth with blood, but she will not, she will not, she—

She will not hurt anyone again.

Not even _him_.

Not even—

The anger swells, becomes a living, breathing thing, a monster made in her mind. It frightens her more than any memory ever could.

She hides under the bed. What she called a bed, anyway, the rotted boards and stolen blankets. Makes herself small and slender and slides underneath like the little sliver of darkness holds all the space in the world, like it wouldn’t be a tight fit even for someone as tiny as Tripitaka.

Like she used to do, she remembers now, when she was small and confused and her head wasn’t working properly, when she heard the footsteps and voices from the village above and didn’t know that this place was safe. Before she learned to drown out their sounds with other things, with the whispers from the water and the voices in her head. When she didn’t know anything, when all her senses were alight all the time and the whole world was a living, screaming horror.

It still is, some days, but it’s different now. She has other things to make it easier. People who don’t frighten her, people who don’t make her angry. People she cares about. People she—

People she could so easily hurt.

People she _did_.

And so she presses her back to the wall, presses her hands to her ears. Cowers like the child she was, hides from the creature she is. The same, only different. Transformed for good, and then undone, broken again, until she’s two different things at the same time.

And now—

Now she doesn’t know what she is. Only that she is frightened and dangerous.

And so, like she always does from dangerous and frightening things, she hides.

*

Of course, it’s not long before the others come looking for her.

She can feel the Shaman scratching at the doors inside her head, can sense Tripitaka’s worry even from such a vast distance; she will be glad, she thinks with a touch of anger, when this is over all and her mind is her own again. What little there is of it, with all its fractures and cracks and scars, at least it will be hers.

For now, though, it is theirs as well, and they use it very well.

Not that it would have taken much deduction to figure out where she’d go, she supposes. She’s nothing if not predictable in her habits, old and new.

They don’t see her at first; she watches their boots pace up and down, kicking up dirt and splashing in dank, stagnant puddles, searching everywhere except where she is.

 _Good_.

That means she still knows how to keep herself hidden, even from people who can sense her thoughts and her feelings. Means she might yet remember how to survive like this, alone.

Very good. She’ll need to. She—

“Sandy!”

She bites down on the urge to hiss and snarl, to give in to the animalistic thing she was the last time she lived down here. Keeps her mouth shut, her teeth lodged in her tongue, and does not answer.

“Sandy!” Tripitaka, high with worry and tight with annoyance. “Sandy, we know you’re in here!”

_Don’t care. Go away._

“If you do not show yourself,” the Shaman adds, less worried than Tripitaka and rather more annoyed, “we will have to tear this wretched place apart. Would you prefer that?”

A hollow threat, probably; he’d never get his hands that dirty. Still...

Sandy sighs.

Hauls herself out from under the bed, stiff and grudging, but doesn’t stand up to greet them. She sits, instead, with her back to the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. Tries to look small, tries to convince herself that she is harmless and helpless and not as violent as she feels.

“Should’ve knocked,” she sulks. “On the door in or my head, either one. Not a good idea to invade my personal space just now.”

Tripitaka winces, but she’s smart enough to keep her distance. “Sandy, you’re not the monster you think you are. But even if you were, hiding yourself away from the world, _again_ , is not the answer. The last thing you need right now is more loneliness, more isolation. Isn’t that what drove you mad in the first place?”

“Apparently not.”

Tripitaka rolls her shoulders; the tension in them is a palpable thing, even from a distance.

“Sandy,” she says again, with none of her usual patience. “You need support. You need help. You need your friends—”

“I _hurt_ my friends.” She shrinks down even smaller, lets the memories wash over her until her stomach is sour again, until her teeth are clenched with the effort of holding it down. “Then and now. Instinct or confusion or loss of control. Choose one, it doesn’t matter. I did what I did, and I feel what I feel. And I’m not safe, I’m dangerous, and I don’t trust myself not to...”

Stops, shuddering. In her mind’s eye, she sees Monica’s face, unrecognisable through a wash of blood; she blinks, and the face is Pigsy’s, the way he could have been that night she woke, the way he might still be if she lets herself get angry again when he’s in the room, if she looks at him and remembers—

“The lack of control _is_ a problem,” the Shaman murmurs, speaking more to Tripitaka than Sandy. “Do not delude yourself that it’s not.”

He is not so respectful of her personal space this time, despite her warnings. He moves to kneel in front of her, smooth and uncaring of the grime and slime of the sewer all around him. Admirable, she thinks, but the sentiment doesn’t last; he takes her face in her hands without waiting for permission, as he so often does — a demon through and through, even when he’s trying to help her — and the admiration dies along with every other emotion as the maelstrom inside of her dissolves to familiar, hollow numbness.

“Be gentle,” Tripitaka urges uneasily. “She’s clearly fragile at the moment.”

Her voice sounds like it’s coming from very far away. Sandy can’t figure out whether she wants her closer or wants to stretch the distance out even further. It’s so hard to think when the Shaman has her like this, so hard to do anything but breathe, and even that seems to take a great force of effort, every atom in her body needing to focus on the task.

And it does. And she does. Breathes, slowly, in rhythm with the Shaman’s. And she knows she should feel violated, knows that’s exactly what he’s doing every time he touches her like this, but the quiet, the void in her head, the loss of so much feeling is such a relief, she finds she can’t care.

But then, perhaps that’s just another side-effect of being empty. 

“Your mind, I can fix,” he tells her, still holding her face. “The fear of yourself is another matter entirely, and one that only you can mend. But know this: if you cannot find a way to deal with it, it will destroy you just as surely as the cracks in your mind.”

Sandy feels her pulse quicken in her chest, her wrist, her throat; she can feel the flow of blood through her veins, her body’s reactions to what it’s hearing, but her mind cannot process those physical sensations into feeling. Numb, hollow, empty; she knows it’s for the best, knows that she needs this absolute calm after the storm she’s just weathered, but it is more than a little disarming as well.

She tries to speak. Can’t. Her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth, her vocal chords unresponsive to her commands; she can only growl low in her throat and keep breathing.

Tripitaka speaks for her. She’s creeping a little way forwards now, like she can hear Sandy’s body calling for her, even as it’s held suspended and still. She crouches in front of her, touches the places the Shaman won’t, her back and her hip and her hands, and holds eye-contact with Sandy even while she speaks to the Shaman.

“We’ll find a way,” she tells him. “If I can keep her anchored and grounded through all those awful memories, surely I can help her through this too.”

It sounds more like a question than a statement. Sandy gets the distinct impression she’s not as convinced as she wants them to believe.

The Shaman considers this for a moment, then releases Sandy’s face and glides to his feet. Her skin grows colder without the contact, but the numbness lingers preternatural and all-devouring. She feels everything as though through a thick fog, emotions smothered, sensation stifled, and it might be pleasant if it wasn’t also smothering the warmth of Tripitaka’s hand on her hip, the rhythm of her other tracing patterns across her knuckles, the quiet comfort of contact that has kept her treading water for so long.

“Do as you will,” the Shaman says to Tripitaka. “I am merely informing you of the situation, and offering a warning. I will not see my efforts wasted because she doesn’t wish to heal.”

Sandy strains against the numbness, the emptiness. It is a strange, difficult thing, fighting against nothing, but she can feel it slowly starting to wear off without the Shaman’s touch to sustain it. A few moments more, and her body and mind are released back to her, bringing with them sensation and emotion and—

 _Everything_.

She flinches as it all comes flooding back, the memory of what she did and the visceral feelings that came with it; she pulls herself free from Tripitaka’s grip, and buries her face in the crook of her elbow to try and muffle the screams that want to pour out of her.

Tripitaka doesn’t try to touch her again, but Sandy can feel the sorrow radiating from her as she whispers, “She does want to heal. I know she does. She’s just upset by what she’s seen.”

Sandy pulls her head up sharply. Hisses, a primal sort of sound that is more demon than god.

“Didn’t _see_ ,” she snarls, feeling the words tighten like a garrote across her throat, like Monkey’s staff the day they met. “ _Did_. And I remember doing it.”

“I know you do.” Tripitaka’s sigh is the softest, saddest sound in the world. “I know it feels very real for you right now. But just because it feels that way doesn’t mean it is. Sandy, you were a scared, wounded child, your mind was in pieces, you couldn’t possibly have known...”

Sandy shakes her head, the motion nearly as violent as the chaos inside. “And when I almost did the same thing to _him_ in my sleep?” she grits out, realising only as she speaks that she can’t say his name without seeing blood, without tasting it on her tongue, feeling it under her fingernails; she gags, swallows, and presses on, “Was I a child then?”

“No.” Another sigh, not so soft but just as sad. “Sandy, you were—”

“ _Broken_. Yes.” The word tastes like a strange sort of triumph, powerful but acridly bitter. “And you cannot promise that it won’t happen again. None of us knows what lies ahead on the quest, what trials still await us on the journey west. You can’t promise that my mind will remain intact throughout. You can’t promise that some other demon won’t bend me to his will, or that I won’t be affected by some narcotic or toxin or...” She shakes her head. “You can’t promise, Tripitaka, that I will never again lose control of my mind.”

Tripitaka is silent for a long time. Contemplative, pensive, a little reclusive; she keeps her distance, seemingly for both their sakes, and Sandy doesn’t know whether she misses the contact or appreciates having a little space to breathe.

“I can’t promise that for any one of us,” Tripitaka says at last, ever so softly. “I can’t promise we’ll never face another Shaman or another Locke or even a Druid. I can’t promise we won’t face something worse, something that wreaks havoc with Monkey or Pigsy or even me. You’re not the only one on this quest, Sandy, and you’re not the only one afraid of what you might become if you lose control.”

Sandy studies her hands, the knuckles marble-white even without making the fists she so desperately wants to. “Not _might_ ,” she mutters. “I _know_ what I become when I lose control. I’ve lived it, not once but twice. I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it, I...” She closes her eyes, lets the moment break over her like the wave of blood it is. “I felt my fingers digging into her skin, Tripitaka. I felt her flesh rip and tear. I felt—”

Stops.

Has to, or she’ll be sick again. And she’s had nothing inside her for so long she’s a little bit afraid she’ll injure herself if that happens.

When she trusts herself to look up again, to move without convulsions, she finds Tripitaka watching her closely, with tears in her eyes.

“I know,” she says, and takes Sandy’s trembling, white-knuckled hands and doesn’t let her pull away. “I know. And it’s a terrible, horrible nightmare of a thing to have to remember, I know. But that’s what happens when your memories are where they belong, Sandy: you have to live with them. Even the bad ones. Even the really awful ones. The things that were done to you, and the things you did to... to others. Everything. That’s what it means to be whole again. It means knowing yourself. All of yourself. Even the parts that terrify you.”

It sounds impossible. Insurmountable. Sandy looks down at Tripitaka, feeling so much smaller than the tiny, fragile little human who has been her source of strength for so long. “How?”

And she means, or she thinks she means, that she does not want to know the person she should be, doesn’t want to know someone who has endured and inflicted so much pain and suffering. And she means, though she would never say it aloud, that she wishes she didn’t remember anything at all, wishes her mind and her memories were still broken, wishes she could have lived the rest of her life never knowing or understanding herself at all.

And maybe Tripitaka understands that, and maybe she doesn’t. But either way she takes the question at face value, pretends it’s nothing more than that: _how do I survive this?_

And though it’s visibly difficult for her, this time she does not lie.

“I don’t know,” she says, and the truth is brutal but her voice is tender. “But we’ll figure it out. Okay? You and me, together. I promise.”

Sandy wants to believe that. More than anything in the world, she wants to believe that they can. But it is so much and so painful, and she’s not sure _together_ is enough for something as vast and dangerous as this.

As her.

So she closes her eyes, chokes down the pain and the fear, and whispers, with an honesty as brutal and as tender as Tripitaka’s, “What if we can’t?”

But she doesn’t really mean ‘we’, at least not the way it sounds when Tripitaka says it. She means ‘she’, herself, the very thing she has to face. She means: what if she’s not strong enough or brave enough or whole enough, even with Tripitaka’s help, to look her past pain in the eye, to survive her traumas again and come back healed; what if she cannot face the things she endured and the things she did, what if she cannot make peace with the thing she became and the reasons why; what if, even after all this pain and grief and suffering, _herself_ is still too terrifying?

And Tripitaka, who has always been so insistent that there is no other path than the easy one, that Sandy will be well again, that everything will be fine and good and healthy, squeezes her hands and kisses the corner of her mouth and says, quiet as a secret and soft as a breath:

“If we can’t, we can’t.”

Sandy swallows tears. Still hot, still scalding, but somehow less. Her head throbs with the effort of not crying, but her throat, for once, doesn’t feel sore at all.

“And that’s okay?” she asks, tremulous and afraid.

And Tripitaka kisses her again, sweet and slow, until the world and everything in it seems to dissolve and disappear, the dark and the cold and the dank, the cracked walls and stagnant water she once called home.

“Yeah,” she whispers, a promise sealed in her skin. “That’s okay.”

*


	21. Chapter 21

*

They drag her back to the tavern.

Thankfully not literally.

The Shaman keeps his distance, following a few paces behind and muttering ominously to himself, wordlessly taking his cues from Tripitaka. Sandy doesn’t like the way they communicate with each other without speaking, a thousand sentences exchanged through a glance or a frown. They’ve obviously discussed this — discussed _her_ — at great length; she wonders what they said about her, whether or not they argued about how best to deal with her, whether they simply agreed and set out immediately. Thinking about it makes her insides squirm, makes her feel heavy and uncomfortable, and so she stops.

The tavern, as it hoves into view, is like a great looming monster. Seeing it draw closer, Sandy is overwhelmed again by the urge to run, to escape, to go back underground, to—

Tripitaka, no doubt feeling her pulse accelerate, tightens her grip on her arm. “Sandy.”

Sandy bristles at the rough treatment, but doesn’t try to pull free. “Don’t want to go back in there,” she huffs, aiming for sullen rather than scared. “Not the tavern. Definitely not Monica’s mind.”

“You won’t need to,” the Shaman says, still keeping a few paces between them. “Your memories are as complete as they’re ever going to be, and I have acquired what I need for my task. Delving further would only cause needless distress to all three of us.”

Sandy nods her gratitude, thinking on that. Such a strange feeling, after so long in pieces, to know that there is nothing left to rebuild, that any lingering holes are the product of her own weakness, her own inability to—

To process _trauma_.

Sandy doesn’t know how she’s supposed to feel about that, but she suspects Tripitaka would not approve of the way it makes her flush, shame and self-loathing burning hot under her skin.

She glances down, trying to smother the feeling without much success. Tripitaka is looking up at her with an odd look on her face, somewhere between concern and curiosity.

“Do you remember what happened after?” she asks, trying in vain to keep her tone casual and conversational. “We only saw as far as...”

She trails off, clearing her throat. Sandy appreciates the feint at tact, though the awkward silence is no less telling than the words would have been; the details of what she did still weigh far too heavily on the air.

Sandy shivers, swallows hard, and closes her eyes. Focuses on the question, the easier part: what came after.

“Ran,” she says, letting the word chase off the memory of why. “Didn’t know who she was, where I was. I thought... thought she was going to hurt me. Thought she was a monster. So I ran.” Her breath hitches, but she doesn’t let the pain slow her down. “Found the dark, the cold, the running water. Underground, where no-one would ever find me. Hid there. Disappeared.”

Tripitaka chuckles, hoarse and humourless. “Like you just did?”

“Yes.” She does not flinch at the flicker of accusation, will not feel ashamed of herself for heeding the same reflexes that kept her alive for so long. “Different reason. Same reaction.” She turns back to the Shaman, tests the notion on her tongue. “Muscle memory.”

He tilts his head. “Indeed. Your survival instincts are... impressive.”

Said through gritted teeth, like he’s not really sure it’s a compliment. Sandy tries not to think too hard about it these days, the way she lived her life before Tripitaka fell into her arms and saved it, the way she was forced to hone those instincts until there was nothing else left of her. If it was a compliment, she thinks wretchedly, it shouldn’t be.

She turns back to Tripitaka. She’s still looking up at her with that concerned curiosity, waiting for her to continue. But there isn’t any more, at least nothing Sandy can think of.

So she hunches her shoulders in a stubborn sort of shrug, and mutters, “That’s all. Disappeared. Stayed hidden for years and years. Maybe they tried to find me, maybe not. Doesn’t matter, because no-one ever did.”

“We could ask Monica,” Tripitaka suggests. “Find out if she tried?”

“What good would it do?” She closes her eyes, keeps her feet moving by intuition, trusting Tripitaka not to let her fall over. “If she tried and couldn’t find me, all I’ll have is what might have been. But who would search for someone who had done such a terrible thing to them?”

Not that it matters, she doesn’t add, because they all know how it ended. There was no happy reunion for her younger self, no light at the end of the tunnel, only water and whispering voices. The years that came after were all her own; she remembers them far too well, knows them as intimately as her own dirt-streaked face, and she knows that they can’t be changed.

Sensing that she’s upset, Tripitaka squeezes her hand. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, but the words sound very different on her tongue than they do in Sandy’s head. “The past is the past, remember? It’s done. Finished. You grew and you changed. And now you’re with us and you’ll never be alone again.”

Sandy nods, but can’t bring herself to meet her eye. “That part of my past, I do know,” she sighs. “Being alone. Drowning in the dark, making a home for myself there. Hating people and demons and the world. I remember that.” A bolt of pain stabs her between the eyes, like lightning on dry brush. “And now I remember _why_.”

Tripitaka doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t know what to say, maybe, or else she realises that anything she says would be fruitless. She met that Sandy, the one who had spent her whole life alone, who only knew the dark and the dank and the cold, who would hold a weapon to a young monk’s throat because danger was the only thing she could see. They’re both familiar with that Sandy, a broken creature driven halfway mad by isolation and loneliness, and it will only cause pain for them both to look into that creature’s eyes and tell it where it came from.

She remembers that journey now. Even without the Shaman stitching her mind’s broken pieces back together, her memory is whole enough now to capture the bulk of it, the distance from abandonment to isolation and the terrible things she did to survive it.

They get back to the tavern, all three of them, in silence.

Sandy wonders if Tripitaka can feel her pulse hammering in her veins, if she can feel the blood thrumming where their skin touches. She doesn’t want to be here again, doesn’t want to see Monica again, doesn’t want anything. She wants to be alone, wants to isolate herself again. She wants to become that Sandy again, the one who saw the world as a threat and saw herself as an infected wound, who didn’t need to be frightened of herself because she had no friends to hurt.

But her hand is in Tripitaka’s and so is her heart, and she cannot deny her anything, even the thing that so terrifies her.

The tavern is empty of its patrons. No surprise there; if Sandy were in Monica’s shoes, she wouldn’t feel up to entertaining either. She’s behind the bar as usual, though, polishing the surface with a distant look on her face, and she doesn’t even glance at the door when it creaks open.

“We’re closed,” she says, without preamble, eye still fixed on the bartop.

Tripitaka, ever the diplomat, clears her throat. “We know.”

Monica still doesn’t look up. Deliberate, that. Has to be. Sandy wonders whether she’s being evasive for her own sake or because she thinks it’s what Sandy wants, wonders whose pain is tightening her shoulders and making the cloth jerk and judder against the surface of the bar. She hates that she’s even thinking about it, hates that she’s letting her own pain play a part when she should be thinking only of Monica’s.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I’m sorry, I—”

“Sandy.” Tripitaka tightens her grip again, silencing her. “Take it easy.”

She tries, she does. But it is hard, being back here. Every nerve in her body wants to run away again, but she can’t move at all with Tripitaka holding her. It’s difficult enough just to breathe. And so she stands there, feeling too small and too big at the same time, and wishing she had enough strength to turn her body back to mist and fade away for good.

Finally, just as she’s on the brink of trying to do it anyway, Monica looks up and locks eyes with her. There is so much in her one eye, more than Sandy could ever hold in both of hers, and she wishes she could take even a tiny piece of that pain away from her.

“Came back this time, did you?” Monica asks, a little huffily.

Sandy swallows another manic apology. “Tripitaka made me.”

“Of course she did.” It’s a good excuse to turn her attention to the little not-monk, though, a good excuse to break eye-contact with Sandy before the hurt overwhelms them both; the relief is palpable, and Monica smiles tightly at Tripitaka’s sheepish smile. “Looks like you’re a good influence. Keep it up, and maybe you’ll make real gods out of that lot after all.”

Tripitaka’s smile wavers, uncomfortable in the way she always get when the attention is on her. “I can try.”

Monica grunts her approval, then turns rather pointedly towards the kitchen. “I’m going to fix some broth,” she says. “And so help me, you’re going to eat it.”

Sandy blinks. It’s about the last thing she was expecting, though perhaps it shouldn’t have been, and for a long, awkward moment she doesn’t know how to respond.

“Not a good idea,” she says at last, nervous in spite of herself. “My stomach hasn’t been very happy since...” She swallows, nauseated all over again just by saying it. “Not for a long, long time, seems like.”

“All the more reason to get some broth into you.” She says it in that firm, no-nonsense way she has of cutting off any argument before it begins. “Because I remember a time that was the only thing you could keep down, and the only thing that made you happy to boot. So no complaints, you hear?”

Sandy looks urgently at Tripitaka, begging her with her eyes.

Tripitaka, as predictable as Monica, has no intention of accommodating her. She never does, it seems, when food or sleep are concerned.

“You’ve been sick,” she reminds her, somewhat needlessly. “And you haven’t eaten anything all day. If there’s a chance you can get some sustenance into you, I think you should.”

Sandy sighs. Somehow, she suspects ‘I’m a god, I don’t need your stupid human sustenance’ would once again fall on deaf ears. Touching, of course, that they care so much, but a little terrifying as well. She’s never known so much love before, and she doesn’t know what to do with it. Doesn’t feel like she deserves it. Is still afraid, deep inside herself, of admitting she might like it.

Still waiting, she supposes, for the moment it abandons her.

And Tripitaka, knowing her thoughts even when they’re silent, holds her hand tightly and smiles.

*

The broth still tastes of memory.

Even just being in the kitchen floods Sandy’s senses with it, ghosts of moments she remembers now but didn’t the last time she was here, little pieces of herself she secretly wishes were still lost. She doesn’t know what to do with them, how to process this new-old familiarity; her mind is still too broken to deal with them properly, but it does the best it can. Severed and separated from herself, it’s like she’s looking into the room through two different sets of eyes.

The Shaman joins them, no doubt concerned that his services will be needed, but he doesn’t eat and he doesn’t try to engage in their conversations. He stays by the door, a living shadow, and Sandy desperately envies him.

She sits with Tripitaka at the little kitchen table, while Monica stands over them both with a spoon in one hand and the other on her hip. Keeps a bit of distance this time, like maybe there’s a part of her that’s still a little nervous around Sandy. Memories, unpleasant and fresh for her as well. Sandy wants to suggest, again, that it would be best for them all if they’d just let her go away, but she knows what they’d say and so she doesn’t waste her breath.

Instead, with great reluctance, she tries to eat. Tries to keep her mind clear of all the things that turn her stomach, twisting and tangling inside of her. Tries to cling to the fonder memories she finds in the bowl.

Good ones. Warmth and comfort. The sweetness tastes a little bitter after everything she’s just been through, the memories still a little too close to the surface. She remembers finding solace here from her sickness, a brief, blessed respite from the pain in her chest and the endless razorblade coughing, but at the same time her older self — her _present_ self — knows exactly where that road took her.

She found a home in this place. Briefly, much too briefly, but still. And she wonders, though she knows it will do no good, what sort of a soul she might have cultivated if she’d stayed here, if Monica had kept her and taken care of her and raised her in relative safety. If she’d finished growing up here, as normal as a young god could ever hope to get in a world where they were hunted, with warm skin and a full belly, living above the surface, in a place the light could touch.

As though sensing her thoughts, Monica takes a deep breath and says, in a voice that trembles only slightly, “You were a good girl, you know.”

Sandy tenses all over. She’s not sure she’s ready to hear this, not sure she can take the pain of ‘what if’, but somehow she can’t seem to stop herself from blurting out, “Was I?”

“Yeah. I mean, a little skittish, but...” She sighs, and the sound seems to carry the weight of a thousand years. “You just wanted someone to care about you. That’s all. Nothing else in the whole damn world.”

Tripitaka is looking at Sandy with tears glimmering in her eyes and a fond smile lifting her lips. “I think she’s still a little bit that way,” she murmurs. “Sometimes, anyway.”

Sandy shakes her head, but doesn’t deny it. Monica, not quite smiling, turns her face away.

“They called you a demon,” she says softly. “And we called you a god. But all you ever wanted was to be a child.”

Sandy looks down into her bowl, swallows hard. She remembers this now, and Tripitaka is not wrong: there are days, even now, when she wishes she could be anything but what she is.

“Could never have been that,” she sighs, reminding herself as well as Monica. “Didn’t matter what I did, what you did, what anyone did. If they hadn’t found me then, they’d’ve hurt you until you gave me up. Or you would’ve had to send me away anyway, to keep us both safe. And I think...”

But she doesn’t know what she thinks, not really, and so she trails off and ducks her head.

Tripitaka, still gazing up at her with so much love, doesn’t speak. She traces the seams of Sandy’s sleeve, delicate fingertips tripping over the rips and tears, whispering wordless promises. Comforts her with her closeness, her warmth mingling with the hot broth, the shadows of a home she never had and the one she will, maybe, if only she has the strength to survive.

“Hush, now,” Monica says, and in spite of everything there is still kindness in her voice, in her one good eye. “No sense talking about what would’ve been, or could’ve been. We both know what was. All the wondering in the world won’t change that.”

Sandy knows that’s true. It hurts to wonder, hurts to imagine a world where she had a chance to be something healthier and more whole than she is, where she could walk in daylight and see the sky and breathe and talk and smile. It is unfathomable, and it makes her ache so deeply she can barely hold it in; she pushes away the bowl of broth, blinking rapidly.

“Did you?” she hears herself ask. She doesn’t really know why and a part of her still can’t bear to think of the answer, but somehow, suddenly, she has to hear it. “Did you look for me?”

Tripitaka starts, looking puzzled. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“I don’t,” Sandy mumbles, not looking at her. “But I think I need to.”

Tripitaka doesn’t say anything, but the frown fades a little and she tilts her head in a thoughtful little nod, a wordless ‘okay’, like this somehow makes perfect sense. So many things do to her, even when they make none to Sandy. Even when they’re her own actions and they still make no sense to her, still somehow they seem rational to Tripitaka. Maybe she’ll ask about it later, when this is all over and it doesn’t hurt quite so much to think.

Monica is quiet for a while too, considering the question and the heavy weight behind it. She stoops to take the bowl away, a convenient excuse to avert her eye as she turns to the sink and begins washing it. no doubt she thinks she’s hiding her feelings by hiding her face, but she’s not the expert in concealment that Sandy is, and her back and her shoulders and her too-tight limbs give her away as completely as if they were facing each other.

“Of course we did,” she says at last. It’s a whisper, almost, and though she doesn’t shake, Sandy can hear the tears rising up into her throat. “Days and days, we searched. High and low, every hole, every corner, every crevice we could think of. Did you really think we would’ve just left you to...” She turns back, faces Sandy completely, and it’s no longer water in her eye but fire. “Fool girl. Of course we bloody looked for you.”

Sandy feels ashamed, feels unworthy. She looks at Monica’s eyepiece, as old, it seems, as she is, and whispers, “Even after what I did?”

“Especially after that.” She doesn’t turn away again, but her body quivers a little like it sort of wants to; she reaches up, touches the contraption with quiet, reverent grief. “You were scared, you fool-hearted thing, and in pain. You needed _help_.”

Sandy swallows; it doesn’t hurt as much now as it has for the last few days, the razor rawness and the echo of too much coughing almost entirely gone now. It is a small comfort, and also no comfort at all.

“That’s what Tripitaka said,” she says hoarsely. “In the sewer, just now. She said I needed my friends more than my solitude, even if I might hurt them.”

“Smart girl,” Monica says, glancing at Tripitaka with a wry smile. “Or monk. Whichever you prefer.”

Tripitaka ducks her head, blushing. “I’m not really a monk.”

“Might as well be,” Monica says. “You’ve got more wisdom in your little finger than most of the holy men I’ve dealt with have in their whole bloody bodies.” She turns back to Sandy, then, and grows serious again. “She’s right. I’d’ve happily given up my other eye if I thought it’d get you the help you needed. If it could have brought you back to us... back _home_...”

The word resonates, like the echo of a clanging bell. It twines itself around Sandy’s heart, her mind, makes her ache with sorrow and warmth at the same time.

“Home,” she whispers.

“Aye.” Monica sighs. “Could’ve been, maybe. But you didn’t want to be found. And eventually we had to shut the door and get on with our lives.”

Just like that. It’s nothing unexpected, but still Sandy reels a little. She doesn’t really know what to say, how to make her feelings known, and so she sticks with what she thinks will be the easiest thing to hear.

“Probably for the best,” she mumbles, talking more to the table than the room. “Would’ve probably just attacked you again, if you had found me.”

“Oh, I’m sure you would have,” Monica says, matter-of-fact but not without feeling. “But I would’ve been prepared for it a second time, wouldn’t I? Knew what I was dealing with.” Her breath ripples on the air; Sandy looks up to find her gazing at her from across the room, a sad smile on her face. “I was never afraid of you, Sandy girl. No matter what you did. You were afraid enough for the both of us.”

True enough, Sandy thinks with a flush of shame. True then, and true now as well, though the fear has taken on a very different shape over the years.

It’s been a long time since she was afraid of being hurt like she was back then. Years and years of skulking in the shadows, of learning how to defend and protect herself, of learning how to stay out of sight, how to use her powers, how to be strong and dangerous, a switchblade in the dark. Years of adjustment, she realises now, to the shattered parts inside her head, to confusion and memory loss, to the early days of waking up with no idea where she was or how she got there, to the later days of assuming she’d been driven mad by isolation and loneliness.

It is easy to know now what she was then. But at the time, the only thing she knew for sure was that she was scared.

Now, the thing she’s afraid of lives much closer. And no matter how fast she runs or how high she lifts her weapon, she’ll never be able to escape it.

She looks down again, studies the cracked wood of the table. Tries to remember the little time she spent here. Wasn’t in the kitchen very much, she recalls now, wasn’t really allowed anywhere someone might chance seeing her. Locked away in her little cupboard, safely tucked out of sight; even back then, it seems, she felt safest when she was hiding.

She takes a deep breath, swallows hard, then says, as quietly as she can, “I know you don’t want to hear it, Monica, but I’m really sorry.”

Doesn’t need to look up to feel the way Monica stiffens. “Damn right I don’t want to hear it,” she snaps, sharp enough that even Tripitaka recoils a bit. “All this rubbish, you blaming yourself for the things that happened to you. They practically lobotomised you, and you’re the one who’s sorry? It’s bloody backwards, and I won’t have any part in it.”

“He was trying to help,” Sandy says, low and subdued. She’s still not sure how she feels about that, but she won’t hide from it; such as it is, it’s the truth. “Pigsy. He thought he was helping. That’s why it went wrong. He thought he was...” She frowns, fumbling, trying to remember his words, his feelings. “He thought he was giving me a fighting chance. Thought he was doing the right thing.”

She looks back up, finds Monica staring at her with a discomfiting mix of pity and anger. Hands on her hips, face a little flushed, and when she speaks it’s to Tripitaka rather than Sandy. “He told her that?”

“We saw it for ourselves,” Tripitaka says quietly. Glancing at her, Sandy can tell she’s not really sure how to feel about it either; it is unexpectedly comforting, knowing she’s not the only one out of her depth in this. “The demon wanted her sedated, unconscious. But he... Pigsy, that is, he kept her conscious so she could fight back. And she did.”

“Too well,” Sandy says bitterly. Her fists are clenching again, she realises, and she shoves them under the table, hidden safely out of sight. “Fought back so hard I broke my mind into pieces.”

Monica is staring at them both now, at Sandy with the same angry pity she wore a moment ago, but at Tripitaka with something a little darker, a sort of quiet simmering that says she’s holding herself back to keep herself from boxing her ears. Sandy tries to make sense of that, but she can’t. Can only really process how much of a relief it is to not be the source of someone’s wrath.

“Because he was trying to help her,” Monica is saying, eerily toneless. “Help her fight back against the demon he was also ‘helping’.”

Tripitaka grimaces, sucking in a tight breath. An unwanted reminder, Sandy suspects, but no less true.

“It’s not that simple,” she says. “You should know that better than anyone.”

“Seems simple enough from where I’m standing,” Monica says hotly. “The girl got under his skin, so he started second-guessing himself. Threw her into the sea, then tossed her a rope after she started to drown.”

Sandy holds up a hand. “Um, I can’t actually—”

“Hush, you.” Monica, apparently, is in no mood for facts; she’s still ranting at Tripitaka. “Point is, he tried to do right by her, too bloody late, and made it all worse. Now she’s got a bloody complex because his stupidity made a mess of her brains. That everything?”

Tripitaka sighs. “He tried,” she says. “Too late or not, he—”

“He screwed her up even worse than she already was, threw her back into my arms without a bloody word, then went crawling back to his demon lover like nothing had ever happened. Doesn’t look a whole lot like ‘trying’ from where I’m standing.”

They’re both looking at Sandy now, like they want her to decide which one of them is right. But she still doesn’t know, and the looks on both their faces are so intense, so frightening, she wouldn’t want to even if she could. 

She ducks her head, tries to hide from both of them at once, and hears her own voice, high and impossibly young, choke, “Please stop.”

Tripitaka does, of course, instantly. Monica takes a little longer, still holding her anger close to her heart, but even she softens when she notices the distress on Sandy’s face. Sandy understands her fury, of course; she’d feel that way too, if she’d been through what Monica did. Which she has, sort of, but her own memories are whole now, and they’ve long since smothered the things she saw through Monica’s eye.

She understands Monica’s frustration, yes, her rage at what happened to them both, just as she understands Tripitaka’s desperation to believe that her friend — her good friend, her kind friend — was still trying, all those years ago, to find goodness and kindness in a place where there was none. But she only has her own memory to work from now, her confusion, her pain, and she can’t form simple conclusions the way they do, watching it all happen to someone else.

She lived it. Endured it, suffered it, and somehow, miraculously, survived it. It’s inside of her. The fear of the great big behemoth who claimed to be a god, the comfort she felt when he held her through the coughing and the sickness, the way he strapped her down so tight she couldn’t breathe and then quietly promised she’d be all right.

It’s all she has: her own experience. And it is nothing like Monica’s, wounded by a child tortured by monsters until she became one, and it is nothing like Tripitaka’s, watching one of her friends accidentally destroy another. It’s just hers, fractured and lonely and isolated, like every other part of her, and she has no idea what to do with it. 

Her head aches. Even with her memories intact, it hurts so badly she can barely think through it; she feels herself slipping, skidding, trying to find traction on a too-smooth surface, feels the past pressing on the walls of her mind, chasing her through the dark, the mist, the safe little corners she carved out for herself. She should be better now, but it still hurts, it still hurts, it still—

She doesn’t realise she’s holding her head again until she feels Tripitaka’s hands tugging at her wrists, gentle but firm.

“Sorry,” she’s saying, and Sandy almost laughs at that. _She’s_ sorry? “I didn’t mean to overwhelm you. Are you okay?”

Sandy nods, a little shakily. Her skull feels like a rotted wall, barely strong enough to hold her brains inside, but at least her thoughts are her own this time. She turns to the Shaman, standing still and silent by the door, and asks him, in a voice that startles her with how weak it sounds, “Why does it still hurt so much?”

He rolls his eyes, like she’s just asked the most idiotic question in the world. “Because you are sitting here talking about your feelings,” he says, wrinkling his nose with disgust, “instead of allowing me to try and heal you.”

Tripitaka straightens up, looking puzzled. “So soon?” she asks. “Is she strong enough? Are you?”

“I can take care of myself,” he huffs, a little defensively. “Though I feel I should point out, you’ve shown little care for my well-being until this point.” Not spoken with any resentment — or if it is, it’s so subtle Sandy doesn’t pick up on it — but there is a flash of warning in his eye when he continues. “Whether she feels well enough for the task is up to her, of course. But I can assure you my methods will be far less distressing than listening to the two of you tell her how she should be feeling.”

Tripitaka flinches a little at that. Monica doesn’t, though she does look somewhat abashed. “I take it you’re done with me, then?”

“Yes.” He says it with rather too much certainty, then frowns and corrects himself: “That is, with any luck. If my attempts to repair her mind prove fruitless once again, we may need more.” He eyes Sandy again, tilting his head as though silently studying the inside of her head. “I am, however, optimistic.”

An odd word, coming from him, and yet Sandy notes with some surprise that he seems to genuinely believe it; for perhaps this first time since this started, he actually sounds cheerful.

Tripitaka notices it too, though she’s wise enough not to mention it. She leans in, touches Sandy’s hip, gazing up at her like she’s the only thing that matters, the only light in the world. Sandy isn’t used to being looked at like that, even from Tripitaka; she feels shy and unbalanced, and suddenly very warm.

“You feel up to this?” Tripitaka asks her. “We can wait, if you—”

“No.” It comes out unexpectedly pitchy, with a kind of desperation she didn’t know she was feeling until it spilled out of her. “Waited most of my life already, wondering what it might be like to be normal, to be whole. Don’t want to wait any more. Tired of waiting, tired of fighting my own mind. Tired of being broken.” She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them again and lets her vision flood with Tripitaka, with warmth and peace. “I remember now, why I am what I am. I want to know what I might have been like if I wasn’t. What it feels like to listen to my mind and hear only quiet.”

She looks up at Monica, blinking back tears. Remembers hot broth and candlelight, remembers dry parchment under her hands, ink staining her fingers, remembers her own voice on the air, high and happy, reciting letters and numbers and poetry. Remembers the way Monica used to roll her eyes and pretend she wasn’t smiling.

All of a sudden, more than anything else in the world, she wants to apologise again.

Doesn’t, though, because she knows how Monica would respond.

So, instead, she waits, for Monica to look at her. Older but not aged at all, one eye instead of two, but still so much the same as the not-smiling, eye-rolling cynic who took such good care of her for such a short time.

“You’ll always have a home here,” she tells her in a low, gentle voice. “Whatever he does to your head, whatever anyone does to it. You hear me, girl?” Her voice cracks. “I’m not having you walk out on me without knowing that. Not this time. You hear?”

Sandy swallows down the taste of broth and salt. She doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t really know if she’s supposed to say anything, but she has to try. She is terrible with words, with social interaction, with _this_ , but still she has to try; it feels important.

“Thank you, Monica.” Filled to bursting with emotion, her words are clumsy and heavy on her tongue. Under the weight of what she’s feeling, it sounds so hollow. “For everything. For now, for then. For...”

But it’s too much, more than she will ever be able to put into words, and so she stops and puts her head in her hands.

“For everything,” Tripitaka repeats; from her, the same useless, hollow word becomes rich with meaning and power.

She’s speaking for herself too, Sandy can tell; perhaps that’s why. For their shared present, of course, but for her personal past as well. Another thing they have in common, she thinks with aching fondness and grief: a shared love for this cynical old barkeep, this firebrand of a woman who would dig her own grave before she’d ever admit she cared, who would dig it twice as fast before she let anything happen to either of them.

Knowing how important it is, how much it means to Tripitaka, Sandy turns away to give them some privacy. It is their moment, not hers, and she doesn’t want to intrude; she watches from the corner of her eye as Monica sweeps Tripitaka up into a fierce, tearful hug, the kind that goes on and on, the kind they’ve both been waiting a long time for.

She slinks away while they’re busy, touched but fearful of contact, and lets them have their moment in peace, without her there to steal away the succour they draw from each other.

She makes her way to the Shaman’s side, turns to look at him instead. He’s not as touched by the display as she is, face creased and crumpled like he’s tasting something unpleasant. Doesn’t like sentimentality, she knows, even at the best of times, and he seems as ill at ease as she is with physicality and tactile gestures; watching others engage in such things is as uncomfortable for him as it is for her, if not for the same reason.

For Sandy, touch is still a learning process, for her heart and her mind, but for her skin as well; she has been deprived of it for so long, there’s not a single part of her body that knows how to respond, that doesn’t feel burned by even the most innocent touches. For the Shaman, rather more familiar with the world and all its myriad inhabitants, it seems more like a source of genuine distaste. She wonders if it’s a demon thing or if it’s something more personal, unique to him alone.

She doesn’t ask.

He tilts his head slightly when she joins him, in a wordless sort of greeting, but doesn’t remark on the sentimental moment playing out in front of them. He simply studies her for a moment or two, brows knitting together, then says, with very little pity, “I’m afraid we’ll need to return to your dungeon for this task.” 

Sandy twitches, feeling the word jolt through her like a shockwave.

“Not _my_ dungeon,” she mutters, voice turning sour with the acid suddenly flooding her mouth. “Hers. Locke’s. I was just a visitor there. Poorly treated and...”

 _Tortured_.

She can’t say it. Just the thought of going back there again, of making herself vulnerable in that place, that awful place...

Against her best efforts, she shudders. Haunted, harrowed, horrified. She does not want to go back, no, but she can’t bring herself to ask the Shaman if it’s necessary. They have worked together for too long now; she knows he wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t feel it was important. And for his sake, for everything he’s done for her, all the quiet little pains he’s endured on her behalf, she will find a way to endure this one in silence. She will find a way to be as strong and brave as Tripitaka thinks she is.

The Shaman sighs, no doubt sensing the visceral emotions roiling through her.

“We could attempt the task elsewhere,” he says, with a small measure of compassion. “But the dungeon would be my first choice. It would make the task infinitely less stressful, if we could attempt it in the place where the damage was...” He clears his throat, uncharacteristically awkward. “That is to say, where your memories and the... ah, _incident_... align most closely.”

Sandy chuckles. Weak and shaky, but she does. “The ‘incident’,” she echoes, sounding rather more hollow than she intends. “You mean the shattering of my mind? That ‘incident’?”

“If you would have it phrased that way.” He tilts one shoulder, like her suffering is barely worth a shrug; if they had not endured so much together, she might almost believe it. “The tact was for your benefit, not mine.”

“I appreciate it,” she lies. “But it’s not necessary. I know what was done to me.” She closes her eyes, tries to breathe through the rising fear, the horror, the nausea, then says, as quickly as she can before she changes her mind, “Whatever you think is best. Even if it means going back there.”

He looks almost surprised; apparently, even with his unique insight into her thoughts, he expected a fight. “Oh?”

“Yes.” She sighs. “You’ve kept me in one piece this long. One last unpleasantry would hardly kill me now.”

“Indeed.” He doesn’t smile — he almost never does — but his lips lose just a little of their thinness. Glancing back at the others, still embracing and murmuring endearments to each other, he clears his throat. “If you two are _quite_ finished...”

Tripitaka coughs and pulls away, wiping surreptitiously at her face. “Right. Um. Yes.”

She throws her arms around Monica one last time, then steadies herself and moves to join them. Monica, meanwhile, stays where she is, a sorrowful look on her face as she looks at Sandy, like longing but deeper.

“Suppose you’ll shut down if I give you a hug too, eh?” she says, trying and failing to hide the hurt when Sandy mumbles her affirmation. “Aye. Never were one for being touched. Even back when you were...”

Doesn’t finish. Maybe doesn’t know what she wants to say. Too many options, Sandy supposes, too many things she used to be, things she hasn’t been in a long time; instead of trying to choose one, Monica settles for letting the thought hang unfinished, for summoning a soft, strained smile, for keeping her distance for both their sakes.

Tripitaka doesn’t touch her either, no doubt taking her cues from Monica. Sandy’s skin stings for a moment, too sensitised by the closeness without contact; even now it doesn’t know whether it wants more or less. It is disorienting, a little unsettling; just one more thing, she supposes, that she’ll have to learn to get used to.

Apparently having reached the limit of his tolerance for sentimentality, the Shaman grunts and says, “Shall we proceed?”

Sandy shakes herself, waits for her skin to stop vibrating. Looks down at her boots so she won’t have to see Monica's tight mouth, won’t have to see the softness in Tripitaka’s eyes, won’t have to see them all watching her.

“Yes,” she mumbles, as shy as her younger self, and just as frightened. “Yes, please.”

*

The chamber is much smaller than she remembers.

She remembers a vast, airless space, dark and foreboding. Remembers Pigsy towering over her like the giant he was, remembers trying to focus on the ceiling swaying above his head, remembers the sound of her panicked breaths bouncing off the damp stone walls. She remembers the big terrible chair, but only very vaguely, like a vision from a nightmare, twisted and threatening. Remembers the straps pressing down on her chest, the way her ribs felt like they were breaking.

The chair is long gone now, but the chamber doesn’t look any bigger without it. She thought it was massive, the enormous nightmare machine taking up so much space, but the room is just as suffocating when it’s empty. Just as scary to a fully grown adult god as it was to a lost child. There’s barely any room to breathe with the three of them there together, and the intimacy is uncomfortable and oppressive; Sandy doesn’t like feeling like she can’t escape, especially with her memories clawing and scratching at all the horrible reasons why she needs to.

She doesn’t remember the details of what happened to her here, but she remembers being dragged out of her cell and shoved into the room, into the chair, remembers the way they strapped her down and pulled the bonds so tight she couldn’t breathe, remembers knowing right down to her bones that something dreadful was about to happen, something so bad it defied words. It may not be everything, but it’s enough to make her whole body start to shake.

“Are...” Her throat is sore; her ribs feel bruised and crushed. “Are we sure it has to be here?”

The Shaman inclines his head, as sympathetic as he is capable of being. “As I said...”

He doesn’t elucidate. Doesn’t need to. Sandy nods her acknowledgement — she wasn’t really expecting any other answer, just wanted to remind herself she could speak — and tries to slow her breathing. She has a strong memory of panic, of her chest heaving, the rising terror more powerful than anything she had ever felt before, and even now she doesn’t know for sure whether it was the tightness of the straps or the fear of what was to come that made her start to hyperventilate.

She doesn’t realise she’s doing the same thing now, history repeating itself yet again, until Tripitaka squeezes her arm and brings her back to the present.

“I’m here,” she says. “And you’re safe. And you’re powerful. No-one can hurt you any more.”

Sandy nods, tries to summon a shaky laugh. “Don’t know why I’m so affected,” she admits. “Don’t even really remember the bad part. Only the part that came before. Trapped, scared. Shouldn’t be enough to...”

“Your body remembers,” the Shaman says, blank and simple.

And perhaps it does. She can’t breathe; it hurts to even try. She can feel the shadow of the straps pressing down on her like they’re real, like they’re _present_ , like the chair is right there in front of her, ravenous and sharp-toothed, waiting...

She closes her eyes, tries to draw some kind of comfort from the way Tripitaka pulls her in close and says, “It’s normal to feel this way.”

Sandy laughs, a sound like surging water. “Suppose it was only a matter of time before something was normal,” she mutters wryly.

Tripitaka doesn’t say anything, but Sandy can feel her tensing beside her, can feel the discomfort rippling through the fabric of her robes, the press of her hands, every part of her.

The Shaman clears his throat, annoyed by the distraction, and brings them both back to the place that matters.

“Lie down,” he commands, without preamble or ceremony. “Make yourself as comfortable as possible. I realise this may be relative, given our location, but do the best you can.” He eyes Tripitaka again, briefly, but continues to speak only to Sandy. “We will be wandering through the halls of your mind, as we did the first time.”

Sandy grimaces, recalling their first failed attempt at this. Back at the Jade Palace, before her memories were back in place, when it was just her shattered mind and the Shaman’s inability to fix it. She doesn’t particularly relish the idea of going through that failure again, and the look on the Shaman’s face says he feels the same way, but they’ve both come too far to get squeamish now.

“I remember,” she says, and lets that speak for itself.

He nods his approval. “As before, you will be in complete control. If you feel yourself start to falter, reach for your anchor.”

Sandy looks to Tripitaka. There are so many things she wants to say, but she wouldn’t even know where to begin. And so, somewhat grudgingly, she just looks her in the eye, wordless and speechless, and nods.

They lie down together, the two of them, with the Shaman kneeling over their bodies. Threading her fingers through Tripitaka’s, Sandy thinks it’s a little less unnerving, doing this with her. She was alone the last time, just her and the Shaman and her inability to stay focused on what mattered. This time, if she’s lucky...

She turns her head, lets herself bask for a moment in those dark, beautiful eyes.

“Thank you,” she breathes. “For this, for everything, for...”

“Silence,” the Shaman barks, cutting her off. “Try to remain focused.”

He hesitates, though, before touching her face. Only for a moment, but it’s there and it matters. He doesn’t explicitly ask for her permission, but he moves this time with a kind of unspoken respect for her personal space, her boundaries, for the part of her that was wrecked and ruined in this room, the part of her that feels violated just from being here. He waits, as though counting heartbeats, fingers spread, hovering about a hand’s space from her face, and he does not touch until she nods her assent.

The contact is like a shock of ice water, like a memory that isn’t a memory. Her mind only remembers the tiniest part of the trauma it endured the last time she was here, but she’s almost certain the Druid didn’t touch her. Still, the physicality strikes a nerve inside of her, and she goes tense all over, squeezing Tripitaka’s hand so tightly she’s sure it must hurt terribly. Presses her lips together to keep from crying out, squeezes her eyes shut so she won’t have to see this nightmare of a place, she focuses on her breathing, on the Shaman’s icy fingertips, on his voice murmuring quiet, sober encouragements.

“Don’t be afraid,” he tells her. Compassion, as much of it as a demon is capable of showing a god. “I am here to heal, not harm. Remember this.”

And he pries opens the door to her mind and shoves her through.

*

Just like the last time, she opens her eyes in her childhood home.

Not exactly the same as the last time, though. She can still feel the Shaman’s presence, a sort of heaviness in the air like the threat of rain, can hear his voice murmuring in her ear, but he’s not there, at least not physically like he was the last time. Instead, when she looks around, she sees Tripitaka, wisplike and half-faded, standing by her side. Watching the world shimmer around her. Watching Sandy’s face, too, and pretending she’s not.

“Too early,” Sandy mumbles, annoyed and upset. She can sense the Shaman’s agreement, though he does not speak. “Know this already. Happened last time. I...”

 _Focus_ , the Shaman hisses, his voice like a stray thought, a whisper inside her mind.

She nods, takes a breath. Looks around, though she already knows what she’ll find.

Home, or the place she once believed was home. The bedroom she shared with her brothers and sisters, but they’re not there now. Only her, the younger her, the one she’s always remembered. Shaking, curled up in her bed, hands pressed to her ears, trying so hard not to cry. Sandy recalls all of this quite vividly. The voices in her head, the fish and other creatures dying in agony in the nets outside, screaming and screaming and screaming. Relentless and unending, their fear and their pain drove her—

“—mad.”

Her mother, stern and stone-faced, standing over her with a cold meal in her hands. Angry and hiding it poorly, frustrated by the wasted food, the wasted labour, the wasted time. Angry, in the way of people who don’t have enough of themselves to go around. Angry, yes, and a little worried as well; Sandy recalls the back of her hand, effortfully gentle, as she touched her forehead, her cheek, checking for a fever Sandy knew she would never find.

Sandy, the one in the bed, rolls over to face the wall, mumbling a vague half-truth about having a headache.

Her mother sighs. “Well, maybe if you’d eat something for once...”

“Not hungry.”

Untrue. Sandy remembers this as well. Hungry, yes, but she couldn’t eat. Couldn’t even look at the meals her mother prepared — fish, always fish — without feeling sick to her stomach. She could hear them, could feel their pain and their fear; she shared their nightmares every time she closed her eyes. How could she fill her belly with the ones she could not save? How could she look down at their bloodless, boneless bodies and see anything but death?

Her mother shakes her head, a frustrated sigh turning her maternal instincts to something colder.

“Mad,” she says again. “The girl’s gone bloody mad.”

Then she sets the plate down beside the bed, and storms out of the room.

Sandy watches her younger self start to sniffle and whimper, watches her cover her ears again, then pull the ragged bedcovers up to cover her head as well. Trying to drown out the noise, the pain and fear from inside and the anger and frustration from beyond, the screams in her head, the sound of her mother’s frustrated footsteps, her voice raised in the kitchen below as she snapped and shouted at her father. Maybe also trying to drown out the frightened little part of her that thought she might be right, that wondered if _mad_ was the only word for what was happening to her.

Next to her — the real her, the older one, the one who knows better — Tripitaka looks devastated. Her hands are shaking at her sides, not quite fists; it is notable, the way she keeps them to herself.

“You’ve been living with this a long time,” she whispers. “People saying that your mind isn’t... that you’re...”

 _Mad_.

She can’t say the word, though; she never can. Not that it matters; Sandy knows as well as she does. She can only nod, struck by the truth of it now in a way she couldn’t have understood back then. Years and years of life and experience, a dozen different shades of madness carved out of her in a dozen different places, and all she can think, looking back at her younger self now, is that her mother was right all along. She couldn’t have known, of course, and yet...

“Even before it was true,” she whispers, throat clogged with tears. “I was defined by my madness even when I wasn’t.”

She closes her eyes to blink away the sting behind her eyes, and feels the world start to shimmer and bend. In the back of her mind, she hears the Shaman’s voice, telling her to move on, to go forward, to find the moments and memories they spent so long trying to rebuild. _This is worthless to me,_ he doesn’t say, though of course she knows it to be true. He is so much more patient now than he was the first time they tried this, but even his endurance has limits.

She is better, too, at least a little. To be expected, really, after all the time she’s spent in her head and other people’s, all the time they spent together, rebuilding and reshaping the landscape of memory. She’s not an expert in walking its paths this way, but she has seen what became of her, has filled in the holes that left her clinging and scrabbling on sheer walls, has built bridges to cross the abyss that swallowed her the last time. And this time, hellish though it is, she knows where to go.

The dungeon.

Not empty like it is now, occupied only by their motionless bodies, but as it was back then, the chair and the faceless demon and—

 _Pigsy_.

Sandy can’t help herself; she cries out.

Beside her, Tripitaka bites down on a cry of her own. She fumbles for Sandy’s hand, a shaking, half-corporeal grip that feels like slushed ice, and whispers, “It’s not real.”

“Maybe not,” Sandy whispers back, choking. “But it _was_.”

And as she watches, she remembers.

Even the parts that are blurry and indistinct, distorted by time and damage, the parts that her mind is not well enough to let out, the parts that have been locked away for her own protection, untouchable. Sees it all now, even the parts she shouldn’t, the parts that hurt too much to bear, the parts Tripitaka calls _trauma_.

She feels the agony lancing her head as her younger self screams and screams, feels the pieces of herself shattering like stones thrown through a window, feels the Druid slamming himself against the walls of her mind, his powers clashing against hers, sparks and slashes and spreading cracks, both of them struggling, neither of them strong enough.

She feels everything, all of it, with an intimacy she was blessedly spared when she was watching it through Pigsy’s eyes, shielded by the corner of her mind that was whole enough to block out the worst of it, to protect what few pieces were left of itself. She feels and feels and feels, and all of a sudden her younger self is not the only one screaming, not the only one in agony, not the only one _breaking_.

And she can feel the Shaman’s presence all around her, can feel his magic weaving a path between the cracks and breaks and splinters, can feel him trying to hold her together. And she can feel Tripitaka, too, at her side and holding her hand, can hear her voice as she whispers urgently in her ear, can taste the salt of her tears as she cries and holds her and tells her over and over and over that it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

But it doesn’t feel okay. It feels—

 _She_ feels—

She wants to struggle, to fight like her younger self is doing. Wants to resist, repel, reject the demon in her mind, wants to claw and tear and rip him to pieces, to do whatever it takes to get him out of her, wants to—

But even as she thinks of it, even as she bares her teeth, she can hear his voice, nothing like the monster who broke her, whispering, _I am here to heal, not harm_.

And she knows that it’s true, can feel his intentions as clearly as she feels the other demon’s, the one who isn’t really there, just a shadow, an echo, a memory. And she knows that he — _Shaman_ — is in just as much pain as she is, knows that he can feel it all just as intensely as she does, everything that was done to her, all of it, the very worst, knows that he is suffering with her and for her. Knows that it’s all true, that he is _helping_ —

But it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

And she is herself, wholly and completely, but she is in pain and she is frightened, and it doesn’t matter that she is older, doesn’t matter that her memory is whole, doesn’t matter that she is stronger and braver than the wretched child screaming in the chair, because it _hurts_ and she is _scared_.

“Please,” she sobs, to nobody. “I don’t want to be here.”

And Pigsy — a ghost of her enemy, a phantom of her friend — looks down at the screaming creature in the chair, then up at her, like he can somehow, impossibly, sense her presence.

“I’m sorry,” he says, to both of her. “I’m so sorry.”

And Sandy tries so hard to keep fighting, but it’s too much. And she wants to be strong for the Shaman, and she wants to be brave for Tripitaka, but she’s not, she can’t, she _—_

And she closes her eyes, feeling her mind start to buckle and warp, the world twisting all around her— 

And she sobs, the sound drowned by screaming, and she thinks, _please, no more, please, take me away from here, please, anywhere, please—_

*

And she opens her eyes to nothing.

A cold grey void. Silent. Empty.

Mist all around her, heavy, impenetrable, it seems to cover everything. The air is thick with moisture, with water; she can feel it clinging to her skin, trying to protect her, a shroud made of fine, perfect droplets. _Water_ , the only thing she’s ever been able to depend on, the only thing that never abandoned her.

Above her, dark, rolling clouds. Emptiness shot through with the occasional flash of light, jagged little lightning strikes that lash the sky and leave it fractured and scarred. She can see the cracks left behind in their wake, spiderweb splinters spreading from horizon to horizon.

“Your mind.”

The Shaman, visible now, and standing beside her. He looks like a phantom, his face a portrait of clean lines and chiaroscuro, blinding white crossed with pitch-black shadows. He touches her face, and his fingers are impossibly cold, ice-touched and wet with dew.

Sandy blinks up at the splintered sky. “All of that?”

“Indeed.” He follows her gaze, ponderous and a little impressed. “You and you friend made quite the mess.”

He pulls away as he finishes speaking, eyes closed and breathing shallow. Sandy’s skin feels frozen where he pressed, but she doesn’t dare to touch it and check. She keeps her eyes on the sky, watches as one of the smaller, thinner cracks starts to glow, tiny bursts of wan light pulsing through, weaker and weaker; the pulses seem to catch the rhythm of his breathing, red to orange, fading at last into a hazy sunlit yellow, wan but warm.

It’s not a colour Sandy is very familiar with, sunlight, even now. But the colour seems to chase away the ice on her skin where it finds her face, and she thinks it’s actually rather pleasant.

“Is it safe here?” she asks. “Wherever this is.”

“It is safe to _you_.” Said with a quirked brow, like that is a perfectly reasonable answer to a thoroughly stupid question. “We are here because you brought us here. Because you were too cowardly to face the pain of your memories. A defence mechanism, of sorts. You conjured a place to hide from it, a corner of your mind where you could feel safe and protected.” His expression hardens to solid steel. “Of course, we cannot remain here.”

He waves a hand, and another of the cracks begins to glow. The pulse lasts barely a moment this time, a flicker of warmth that lacks the power to reach them, and then a bolt of lightning strikes the same spot, blasting the crack wider, little shards rippling out in all directions like shocks from the point of an explosion.

Sandy feels it like a physical thing, a burst of pain behind her eyes, too real for this place that isn’t. She sucks in her breath, struck and confused, and mutters, “That hurt.”

“As I said,” the Shaman says, like her pain somehow proves his point. “We cannot remain in this place, however safe you may delude yourself it feels. The damage cannot be healed while you are hiding from it.”

“Oh.” Her throat feels parched. She swallows, but it doesn’t help; even with the moisture in the air, it’s like swallowing thick, rancid dust. “But I can’t go back there. Not to that. It’s too much, I can’t, I—”

“Sandy.” Tripitaka, standing quietly at her other side, steady and solid like a good anchor ought to be. She grips her hand as tight as she can, and says, “You can’t hide and heal at the same time. No-one can do that. You know it.”

She does know it, yes. But she can’t, she _can’t_ —

“Tripitaka.” Her voice is as cracked as the sky, all sharp edges and jagged pieces; it sticks in her throat along with the dust-dry discomfort. “That place is the reason we’re here doing this. It tore me apart. Shattered my mind until there was nothing left of it. How am I supposed to endure that again?”

“With us.” The contrast between them is striking; where Sandy speaks like a crack, wobbling and broken, Tripitaka’s voice rings as clear and powerful as the lightning above, lashing and landing with pure, perfect precision. “With _me_. It’s only a memory, even the very worst of it. You’ve already survived it once. And this time you’re not alone.”

Sandy tenses, but she doesn’t pull away. Tripitaka’s hand is the only thing keeping her from fleeing into that endless mist, disappearing like she always does when she’s afraid, and never coming back.

“Not being alone won’t make it hurt less,” she says in a hoarse, frightened whisper. “I’m not afraid of being alone, Tripitaka. I’m afraid of being in pain.”

“I know.” Her voice still doesn’t break, but her eyes are damp now, reflecting the shards in the sky. “There’s nothing more frightening than reliving something that hurt you. I know. And you... you’ve suffered so much already.” She turns her face away, biting her lip, like she can’t look Sandy in the eye if she wants to finish what she has to say. “But we have to face our suffering if we ever want to heal from it. That’s why we’ve been through all this. You have to feel the pain, know it, understand it. You’ll never be able to heal until you do. Even with the Shaman’s magic.”

The Shaman nods his agreement. “Rather more prosaic than strictly necessary,” he says. “But accurate nonetheless.”

Sandy growls. Above them, the sky grows dark. “It’s unfair,” she says, and does not care that she sounds like a child. “Why should I have to suffer more and more pain while _he_ feels nothing?” She doesn’t even speak his name, but still the anger surges, a wash of salt and blood in her mouth. She breaks free of Tripitaka’s grip, clenching her fists. “Why can’t _he_ suffer?”

Tripitaka makes a sad sound. “He does,” she says, very quietly. “I know it’s not the same, I know it’s not even close, but he does.”

Sandy doesn’t want to hear it, but a part of her must realise it’s true because her fists slacken against her will, falling uselessly to her sides. She tries to growl again, but not even the sky hears her this time. She hates that. Here, in this place that wants so desperately to break her all over again, she needs to be strong, needs to be angry. Instead, she weakens and cowers at the tiniest truth. She is too weak for this, too small, too frightened, too—

“Please.” The word wrenches out of her, ragged and worthless. “I don’t want to be in pain any more. I’m tired of being in pain, I’m tired of being afraid, I’m _tired_.”

Tripitaka pulls her into her arms, holds her close; this time she doesn’t even try to offer comfort. “I know,” she whispers instead, the words suspended on a sob that feels like it’s a part of them both. “I know, Sandy, I know.”

It doesn’t help. Being understood, being known. It grazes too close to being seen, being visible, being all the things she’s spent so much of her life hiding from. It is different because it is Tripitaka, because it is always sweeter and softer and more bearable when it’s Tripitaka, but it is still a blade in her belly, serrated and sharp, even in this place her mind made to be safe.

She wants to say that, to tell Tripitaka that she’s not helping, that she can’t help, can’t understand. Looks up, mouth open, ready to say for the first time that Tripitaka’s arms aren’t warm enough to chase away the chills inside of her, that even she can’t—

Stops, cut off before she can even begin, as the Shaman places a hand on her shoulder.

“You are one of the the most courageous gods I’ve ever met,” he says to her, voice shot through with quiet reverence. “I have broken more of your kind than you will likely ever meet, and I could name less than a handful that I would trust to survive what you’ve been through. Do not falter now. I will not be made a fool for believing in you.”

Sandy scowls at that, automatically defiant. Straightens her shoulders and her spine, steadies herself before she even fully realises she’s doing it.

She is, she realises, just like Monkey. In the breaking ground, when he came back from his own memories, the anger in him was a crude, untouchable thing; he slew an army of demons with barely a thought, all with the power of his rage. Because the alternative was letting it hurt, feeling the pain of betrayal, feeling—

 _Feeling_.

In this, they have always been alike. Fierce, determined, and they both only know how to solve their problems with weapons, not words. It is what keeps bringing them together, fists raised and teeth bared, what inspires them again and again to solve their problems through sparring, through standing, through any means they can think of that doesn’t involve feeling too much or too deeply.

Cowardice, maybe. Different to the way Pigsy hides from his responsibility, perhaps, but just as crippling in its way. It is such a nightmare to feel so much, to open herself up to something she knows will hurt, and she is so, so scared.

“I’m not courageous,” she says to the Shaman. “I can hardly remember a time before I was frightened of everything.”

“Being afraid doesn’t make you less courageous,” he replies softly. “Rather the contrary: courage cannot exist without fear. That you have faced yours again and again...”

“ _That_ is courage,” Tripitaka whispers. “Being afraid, but fighting anyway.”

Shivering, Sandy closes her eyes. “I only know how to do two things,” she says. “Fight and hide. I want to hide. I want so badly to hide in here forever, to be safe, to be sheltered, to not be in pain. But I can’t. For you, for him, for...”

“For _yourself_ ,” the Shaman says, and Tripitaka nods her agreement.

Sandy lets that sit. Lets it spread inside her like the cracks in her sky, her mind. It is a strange taste, not entirely pleasant, but it fills her like water, like she needs it to keep her alive.

And perhaps she does.

“For myself, then,” she says, feeling no less afraid. “But with you.”

“Always,” Tripitaka breathes. “Always.”

Sandy nods. Swallows. Already, in the corner of her mind, she can feel the fractures starting to spread again, the pain starting to swell, and the fear rises and rises and—

And Tripitaka squeezes her hand, small and strong and beautiful. And the Shaman, standing stoically at her other side, grips her shoulder and holds her steady.

“You will not falter,” he says. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

And in the moment before Sandy closes her eyes again, before she leaves this small corner of safety, this tiny port from the storms and the screams in her head, she’s sure she sees him smile.

*

And then they’re back.

Back in the chamber, back in the past, back in the moment that tore her mind to shreds, back in a sea of screams.

Her past, her moment, her screams.

But this time, she will endure them.

She slides into the shadows, huddles in the darkest corner she can find, and watches through tear-streaked eyes as Pigsy stands over her younger self, as he mumbles worthless apology after worthless apology, all the while she screams and screams and screams. And she feels it all, her pain and his regret, the fading echo of his memories sticking to her own, filling in the blank spaces her mind locked away, the parts Tripitaka called trauma.

Tripitaka holds her as best she can with her body still spectral and only half-solid. Sandy can’t really feel her touch in any meaningful way, but she is so familiar now with the points of contact, the press of warm hands to her back, warm lips to her temples, of monk’s robes and a low voice, of ‘you’re not alone’ echoing in her ears and her mind, in all the places that are scared, that it doesn’t matter if she can feel it or not. It is there, and her body responds by instinct.

She’s not alone. She’s not a child. She’s none of the things she sees and feels and remembers. She is older and stronger, she is powerful and courageous and loved. She is—

She is all those things, but she is also scared and in terrible pain.

She doesn’t scream like she wants to, doesn’t echo the agonies ripping out of her younger self, strapped down, helpless and struggling, desperate and terrified. It’s the same pain, the same fear, but it’s different too; _she_ is different, and she has learned different ways to process the things that hurt, different ways to endure, different ways to survive.

And she will.

She buries herself in Tripitaka’s arms, finds warmth in this place where there is none, finds love in this place built to inflict suffering. Presses her face to the almost-intangible fabric at her shoulder, inhales the spectral scent that has given her so much comfort for so long. Holds on for dear life, clings to her anchor, her tether, and cries and cries and cries.

And Tripitaka, who has shared so many of her tears already, holds her close and shares these ones too.

It does not lessen the pain. Doesn’t make it any easier to endure, watching and feeling it at the same time, hearing her childhood screams, watching her younger self struggle, knowing there is nothing she can do, knowing that it will only get worse once the screaming stops, knowing that she will end this ordeal in a thousand broken pieces.

There is nothing in the world that could make this pain less, least of all sharing it with someone who will never understand, but something in the way Tripitaka shares this with her says that’s not what she’s trying to do.

Tripitaka tells her she’s not alone, and Sandy says that she was never afraid of being alone. How could she be, when that was the only existence she knew for so much of her life?

She didn’t realise that wasn’t what she meant. Didn’t understand until this moment, as their sobs tangle and twine around each other, empathy and warmth and shared suffering, that she meant she would be here to hold her, to steady her as she sobbed, to shield her eyes and her body, to share her pain and her tears, to cry with her and feel with her and be a part of this awful moment. To be there, so that when Sandy lifts her head, half-blind with pain and sorrow, the eyes she finds are not her own.

It doesn’t lessen the pain. Not even a little bit. But somehow it is easier to endure when her tears aren’t the only ones falling.

And she does. Endure. On her knees in Tripitaka’s arms, and then, as she grows more used to the pain, up on her feet. Swaying, swerving, stumbling, but standing.

Tripitaka stands with her. Helps her to find her balance but she doesn’t hold her upright. Supports her, yes, and strengthens her, but she knows — they both know — that she can’t do anything more, that Sandy has to find her own strength, her own courage, that she has to stay standing on her own.

And she does.

Vision blurred, still swallowing sobs, she stumbles to the centre of the room. To the chair, to the still-screaming body of her younger self, strapped down and stuck inside her own agony. To Pigsy, pale and trembling as he stands over her, a desperate anguish twisting his face into something awful, a nightmarish rictus of sorrow and guilt that terrifies what it tries to comfort.

She reaches out, shaking as hard as he is, and tries to touch him.

Knows, even before it happens, that her hand will pass right through, that there can be no contact between the past and the present. She can’t touch him, can’t talk to him, can’t beg him or tell him or force him to stop. Can’t throw her fists at his face like she wants to, can’t harm him or hurt him or forgive him.

Can’t do anything. But this close, she can see that there is pain in his eyes too, and not just from the reflection of her young, broken self. He doesn’t cry like she does — the young her, the old her, every version of her — because he can’t, because there is a demon standing behind him, a demon waiting in his bed, a demon holding his heart so tight that all she need do is squeeze and it will be crushed to dust. Because he has surrounded himself with monsters, and the only way to survive is to become one too.

Her head pulses, a burst of pain that blinds her and leaves her breathless; somewhere in the back of her mind she feels the Shaman at work, hears his voice again — _I am here to heal, not harm_ — and it gives her just enough strength, just enough power, just enough courage to stay on her feet. Back bowed, body bent, but still standing.

Tripitaka’s hands grow still, trembling over her back. “Sandy?”

Sandy sobs, swallowing back scream after scream. “It _hurts_.”

Above her, seeing but not seeing, Pigsy whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Like before. Just like before.

But she doesn’t run away this time, and she doesn’t hide.

She stands up as straight as she can, blinded not just by pain but by fear and rage and a depth of newfound empathy she does not want, and she looks into his tortured, grief-filled eyes, eyes that can’t and won’t see her. And she thinks of Monica, of her eyes in the too-brief time when there were two of them, and she thinks it’s not fair, it’s wrong and cruel that the one who did this is the only one who gets to walk out of it unscathed.

And she wants so desperately to throw herself at him and claw at his face like she did in her sleep that night in the forest, like she did to Monica without knowing who she was or what was happening, to indulge that angry, hurting part of her, here and now in this place that is not real, to indulge the violence in her just once, knowing that it won’t do any real harm, to give herself a moment of twisted, futile revenge—

But she can’t.

Even here, safe and hidden in the corners of her mind. Even with her fists clenching and shaking at her sides, her pain screaming to be let out, her anger and her grief a living, breathing thing. Even here, even now, even like this, still she cannot hurt him.

She turns, howling and wailing, angry and broken and in pain. And of course Tripitaka is there, of course her arms are open and waiting, strong and powerful despite her small size, of course she’s ready for the inevitable moment when Sandy falls, all the strength and courage vanished from her body, her heart, her mind, from all of her.

They sink to the floor together, Tripitaka murmuring words Sandy doesn’t understand and doesn’t want to hear. She closes her eyes, buries her face in Tripitaka’s warm neck, and whispers, over and over again, “Why can’t I hurt him?”

“Because you’re good,” Tripitaka says, voice thick with awe. “No matter how much pain you’re in, no matter how frightened you are, or how upset, or how completely you’ve lost control. You’re _good_ , Sandy, just like I’ve always said you are. And you would never willingly hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

Sandy looks up at Pigsy. Watches as he slides the needle out of his bracer, bends over her motionless body, readying himself to finish it, to rectify his mistake and turn her into—

She turns away, shaking all over, and whispers, “Doesn’t he?”

Tripitaka does not reply. Lets her find the answer herself.

Sandy sighs, closing her eyes. She feels the walls of the chamber buckle a little, distorted and unbalanced by her lack of focus, and has to fight every reflex she has to keep from letting it happen, keep from hiding again. But she will be courageous, she will be strong; she holds herself here, holds together this place that caused so much sorrow, holds it open and lets the nightmare play out as it must.

She doesn’t realise she’s been holding her breath until she lets it all out in a rush and finds herself wondering if she even needs to breathe in a place that’s made only of memories. Doesn’t really matter, she supposes numbly; either way, she’s still breathless.

“I wish he did,” she mumbles, mostly to herself. “Deserve it. I wish it was that simple: awful people, bad gods and worse demons, doing awful things to a child. They make you hurt, you make them hurt back. Then it’s over, then you can move on.”

Just like Monkey said, she recalls hazily, when he was so angry because he couldn’t hate his demons either. Again, the two of them are so alike. Again, he is with her, his heartbeat in time with hers, even when he can’t be here in person. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to see Pigsy that way again, as a stalwart companion, someone who will be there, someone she can trust and respect and care about. A—

“A friend,” Tripitaka says, as though reading her mind. “He’s your friend. And even back then... back here, I guess... he thought he was helping.”

“He hurt me,” Sandy whispers. “Because of him I hurt Monica. He inflicted so much pain, so much hurt...”

“I know. But he didn’t mean to. And even if he did...” She sighs, and somehow Sandy feels the vibration in her own chest as well. “You can’t heal by inflicting more pain, Sandy. Even if he does deserve it, you don’t.”

And that—

Something in the way she says it, something in the words themselves—

A part of Sandy sort of splits apart.

Not broken, not like the child in the chair, but falling open, falling free, falling—

 _Falling_.

She opens her eyes.

The chamber tilts and wavers around her, like the way her vision became blurry that night in the tavern, the night she thought she was just intoxicated, the night she believed she could just sleep it all off and feel better in the morning. She doesn’t understand the sensation for a moment — she is focusing so hard, with almost everything she has, on just keeping herself here, on not running away again, on not being afraid — but then she looks past the room and the people in it, past the chair and her screaming, broken younger self, past the younger Pigsy and his poorly-suppressed grief, past the memory and the hurt—

And realises, dumbstruck, that the walls are dissolving.

They’re flickering, fading, the damp-covered stone all melting away into nothing, soft sunlight bleeding through the cracks and crevices, spilling warmth into the gloom, pouring light and hope over the dark.

For a moment, a blessed, beautiful moment, it washes everything else away. Floods her vision until she can’t see anything else, none of the awful memories playing out in front of her. Floods her senses until it’s all she can feel, warmth and light and mending. Floods every part of her until there is nothing else at all, until she’s breathing it, breathing in and tasting a world beyond this place, a world where she is not afraid, not in pain, a world where breathing is possible.

She reaches—

Pushes past the chair, the bodies, the shadows of her past, her pain, her trauma, stretches her hand out as far as it will go, and reaches. Not even sure what she’s reaching for, really, only that she needs to, that her whole self somehow depends on it.

It feels like touching the sun, the moment she makes contact with the wall, like stepping out of herself and into something new. She can hear Tripitaka behind her, whispering words of reverence and awe, can feel the Shaman inside her head, encouraging and powerful, but neither of them matter any more; it’s like they’ve faded too, faded and faded until—

Until it’s just her and the sunlight bleeding through the wall, the colours striking her face, her skin, her everything. Just her and the endless space beyond the cracks and tears and fractures, just her and the warmth, the light, the healing.

Just her and—

No.

Just _her_.

And she breathes in deep, swallows down as much of herself as she can, and steps into the light.

*


	22. Chapter 22

*

She opens her eyes.

Awake?

Definitely.

Herself?

Possibly.

She knows where she is. Knows who she is. And when she sits up and tries to feel out the state of her mind, she finds only a dull sort of throb. Nothing like the body-wracking headaches she’s become so used to, the endless spasms and cracks and tears, the memories, new and old and everything in between, all trying to tear her to pieces. None of that at all, just an ache that feels like a fading bruise.

She swallows. Doesn’t taste acid or blood or her own stifled screams. Doesn’t taste anything at all.

Looks up and sees Tripitaka staring down at her, wide-eyed and expectant, like she’s hoping all the secrets of the world will spill out of Sandy’s mouth the second she opens it.

They don’t.

Nothing does.

No sound at all.

She tries to speak, but nothing happens at all.

The Shaman, on his feet looming above her, says, “Your voice will return shortly.”

 _Comforting_ , Sandy thinks sourly.

Tripitaka, never one to be put off by little things like enforced silence, immediately bombards her with more questions than anyone, whole or otherwise, could reasonably answer.

“Do you feel okay? Can you breathe? How’s your head?” Then, much lower, to the Shaman, “Is she all right? Did you—?”

“I mended as much of the damage as I could, yes. And since we are, all three of us, still in one piece, I can safely assume it was a success. Make of that what you will.”

Simple, succinct. He watches Sandy carefully as he speaks, examining and studying her from every angle, but never actually touching her. Not even a glancing brush of her temples. It is unusual, and for a strange, unexpected moment, Sandy finds she’s almost more unsettled by the lack of contact than she would have been if he’d taken her face in her hands and pushed himself into her mind, as he has done so many times before.

She clears her throat, hears a rusty echo of her voice bouncing off the ceiling, the walls, the—

 _Walls_.

It takes her a moment to right herself and remember that yes, they are solid, and so too is she.

She coughs once more, dislodging the rust from her throat, then tries again to speak.

“Head hurts less.” It’s a start, though her voice doesn’t quite sound like her own. Still, the words are mostly coherent, and that’s enough to make Tripitaka beam at her like she just lit up the whole world. “Don’t feel so confused. I think. But it’s not...” She touches her forehead, her temples, half-expecting her fingers to come away wet with blood; she’s not sure where the thought comes from, but the relief that floods her when it doesn’t happen is almost overwhelming. “Don’t feel _whole_.”

“Of course you don’t,” the Shaman says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

Tripitaka pats her shoulder. “Maybe you need some rest?”

“She certainly does,” the Shaman says, with a quiet weight. “But I’m afraid it won’t get you any closer to what you seek. Wholeness, completeness... these are abstract concepts. They simply do not exist. And even if they did, they would be far beyond your grasp.”

Sandy doesn’t really understand, but she’s too tired to try and make sense of it right now. She lies down again, flat on her back, and stares up at the ceiling as it sways and swerves above her head. She’s dizzy, she realises, vertigo settling in her stomach like too much ale. Her head feels full, like someone has stuffed it with some thick gauze, like they’ve been trying to cut off the flow of—

 _Blood_.

Again.

She frowns, but doesn’t try to sit up. Speaks to the Shaman but doesn’t try to look at him. “My mind is full of blood.”

“Your mind is full of _scars_ ,” he corrects, patient but not especially kind. “It will feel raw for a time, as with all slow-mending wounds. This is normal.”

Sandy nods, pretending to understand, as if she’s in any condition to grasp such a messy concept. Doesn’t matter; she’s too exhausted to care. She lets her eyes slide shut, lets the ceiling blur and dissolve like the walls inside her head, and for a time she just lies there and breathes.

Good enough, for a while, doing nothing but that. Breathing, holding herself still, feeling out the places in her head that have changed, the places that were so full of screams for so long they can barely even remember what silence sounds like. Drawing lines through her memories, wandering for the first time down paths that were previously overgrown and unpassable. She can remember now — or try to remember; not everything is clear, even now — without feeling like she is about to lose herself.

Memory. Intact, tangible. She looks through the eyes of her younger self and doesn’t feel confused or lost, doesn’t feel like she’s drowning in a child’s fear or suffering a child’s sicknesses. She can tell the differences between them now, and she knows who she is.

“It’s not so confusing,” she says again, with a touch more certainty now. “I can think and feel. I can see my memories, access them, I can...” She swallows, overwhelmed for a moment by the enormity, the impossibility of such a simple thing. “I can _remember_. And the world stays where it’s supposed to be.”

She sits up, looking around at the chamber. She only remembers fragments of what she went through here, the rest still distorted by trauma, locked away and hidden for her own sake. What little she does remember is messy, scattered bits and pieces, pain and fear and Pigsy’s face shrouded in shadow, but the holes don’t feel quite so threatening any more. Like she could step over them without being sucked into their depths, like she could peer down into the darkness and not be devoured by it.

She wonders if this is how it’s supposed to feel. Memory loss, the normal, simple kind. No more cracks and splinters, no more invisible fists punching holes through her head. Just hidden pain and repressed trauma, her mind protecting itself from things no-one should have to feel.

“Good.” Tripitaka, still sitting beside her, gazing up with stars in her eyes. Sandy feels terribly exposed, but it is a new and precious thing, feeling vulnerable without feeling afraid. “I’m sorry you had to go through so much just to feel that way. It should be...”

She shakes her head, like she’s not entirely sure what it should be. Sandy has a feeling she knows what she wants to say — ‘simple’ or ‘normal’ — but she keeps that to herself. She’s tired of seeking those things, tired of trying to find them and learning, again and again and again, that they don’t exist inside of her, and probably never will.

Moving slowly, carefully, like she’s recovering from a debilitating illness, she climbs up to her feet. Her body feels a little shaky, a little weak, but there is no pain when she moves. Exhaustion, and plenty of it, but no pain. It is the strangest feeling in the world, moving and breathing, existing without pain.

Tripitaka scrambles up to stand beside her. Tentative, her movements a little frenetic, like she’s afraid she’ll have to catch her, as she’s had to catch her so many times before, from a loss of balance or the instinct to run and hide. Neither of those things happen now, though, and for a moment they simply stand there together, not touching and not needing to touch, just calmly coexisting.

Then, slow and careful, like she’s walking on glass, Tripitaka says, “How do you feel about going back to the palace?”

To rest, she means. In a real bed made for sleeping, not on the rain-wet floor outside or some cramped little corner of some half-forgotten room. Somewhere warm, she means, and safe.

Supposed to be safe, anyway.

But ‘safe’ isn’t what Sandy hears. She hears ‘palace’, and her mind conjures up a vision of Pigsy, not as he is now, her friend and companion, but as he was then, a towering, terrifying monster.

She shudders. Feels her chest grow tight, and croaks, “ _No_.”

There must be something terrifying in her expression, or perhaps the way she sounds, because Tripitaka’s face darkens with sudden panic. She touches her arm, a brush of contact across the tattered fabric of her sleeve, and says, soft but with urgency, “What’s wrong?”

Sandy shakes her head, feeling disjointed and fearful and deeply upset.

She closes her eyes, tries to breathe, tries to find the simplicity and silence that was there a moment ago, but it’s gone. Tries to picture Pigsy as the man she knows he’s become, the friend who will greet her when they arrive at the palace, but she can’t. Can only see the monster who broke her, the monster who hurt her by trying to help her, the monster who tore her out of the arms of the only person in the world who didn’t abandon her. The monster who turned her into a monster as well, a wild and rabid creature who would claw and tear and _hurt_ —

She spins, facing the Shaman. “I thought you fixed me!”

He stares at her, one brow raised, and says, very slowly, “There is nothing wrong with your mind, I assure you.”

“No.” Her voice is shaking, her body is shaking. “No, it’s all wrong. I try to picture his face, but all I see is _him_.”

He continues to stare at her for a long time without speaking, expression blank and posture stiff, like he is utterly bored, with the moment and with her.

He’s looking her the way Tripitaka and the others used to look at her, back when they first started travelling together, when she was fresh out of the sewers, blinded by the sun and all carved up by the sharp world and its sharper people, when she didn’t understand the first thing about surviving above ground and they didn’t understand the first thing about her. When everything was so hard for her but staggeringly simple for them, and they could not fathom why it was so impossible for her to function.

They learned to understand her a little better, of course. With time, with patience, with experience. But the Shaman lacks all three of those things — to say nothing of their willingness to try — and so he only looks at her like she’s something unnatural, like her lack of comprehension is an unspeakable crime.

Finally, wearily, he turns to Tripitaka. “Is she truly this naive?”

Tripitaka looks pained. Ignoring him, she looks up at Sandy and says, “What you’re feeling is normal, Sandy.”

“No. No, it’s wrong. It’s wrong, I’m wrong, I—”

“It’s _normal_.” Said even more slowly, even more carefully, like she knows this is going to be difficult. “It’s not something the Shaman can fix.”

“Why not?” She sounds petulant, but she’s not; she’s upset and frustrated and she doesn’t understand. “I’m supposed to be less confused now. Not stuck inside my memories. But they won’t go away. I try to picture him as he is but I can’t stop seeing him as he was.”

“Because it was traumatic!” the Shaman shouts, exhausted and frustrated. “Because you endured a terrible, unspeakable trauma, which you are remembering now for the first time.” He throws up his hands, looking very much like he wants to shake some sense into her. “I cannot fix every little conflict in your mind by waving a hand and commanding it to leave. Some things, you will simply have to work through by yourself.”

Sandy flinches, fights the urge to pout. “But it still hurts.”

“Of course it does.” He sighs, a little more patient now that he’s vented a little of his irritation. “My purpose here was never to end your pain or to banish your trauma. It was to repair the damage to your mind. To allow you to remember your past without losing yourself, to fall asleep without falling through the cracks in your head. To allow you to _function_. That is all. I cannot provide anything more than that. Nor would I, even if I could.”

Tripitaka steps forward, putting herself between them. Her eyes are dark with sorrow and empathy, and when she touches Sandy’s hand the contact is warm and beautiful.

“Mending and healing are very different things,” she explains gently. “He can only help with one.”

Sandy growls her annoyance. It makes sense, of course; even at her most broken and helpless she never truly believed everything would be simple and painless again the moment her mind was mended. But she has spent so much time holding herself together, clutching her shattered pieces to her chest, trying and failing to keep herself sane and steady, hoping and praying that there might be something salvageable left in her, something worth mending.

After all that hoping and helplessness, desolate desperation, to come out the other side, whole and herself and complete, her mind and memories all her own, and yet still be suffering?

No reprieve, even now. What did she expect?

She spins in a slow circle, taking one last long look at the chamber, the little room where so many nightmares were brought to life. It chills her to the bone, being here, and she hates that that’s not changed, that all the mending in the world wasn’t enough to stop her insides from shaking at the sight of an empty room, that even being whole couldn’t keep her from feeling like a frightened little girl strapped to a chair that no longer exists.

“I just want to be _better_ ,” she whines, hating this place and herself.

She’s not really speaking to anyone, but Tripitaka hears her and answers anyway, sensing just as she always does the way Sandy needs her to be present, needs her to be rational and sane, needs her to be all the things she can’t be for herself.

“You’ll get there,” she promises. She stays within touching distance but leaves Sandy with some space to feel safe, to work through her feelings, the mess that swells inside her when she looks around. “You’re already better than you were. But healing isn’t an immediate thing, Sandy. It’s a process. The Shaman was never going to be able to heal all the pain you suffered here, the trauma and the confusion and the years of being confused and lost and...”

“Broken,” Sandy says, toneless and hollow.

“Broken,” Tripitaka agrees, and does not flinch. “He was never going to be able to heal you of all the things you’ve endured. But he’s given you back the means to start healing yourself. To coexist with your past and your pain without...” She swallows, looking heartbroken and a little sick. “...without them _killing_ you.”

“Indeed,” the Shaman says, with unexpected sobriety. “I had only two tasks: to keep you alive, and to repair enough of your mind that it would be able to sustain itself unaided. Now my labour is complete, yours must begin.”

It’s not what Sandy wants to hear. But she can’t argue with the two people who worked so hard to bring her this far. Doesn’t really want to argue, either, in truth; she is exhausted and upset, and she still doesn’t know what she’s supposed to feel; the only thing she can say with any measure of certainty is that she needs to get out of this awful chamber.

“I suppose,” she says slowly, “it is as much as I could hope for.”

The Shaman tilts his head, acknowledging her lack of grace without affront.

“I would advise rest,” he says, not without kindness. “For all three of us. We are all exhausted, and you in particular are in no condition to process your experiences until your body and mind have recuperated.” He smiles, as thin and sombre as the rest of him. “Surely it is as much a comfort to you as it is to me that you will finally be able to let yourself sleep without fear of losing control of your mind?”

Sandy blinks. She hadn’t thought of that.

So many little things like that, simple and straightforward, that her body has almost forgotten how to do. How to close her eyes without falling into herself, how to sleep without waking a dozen times in various states of confusion or disorientation, not knowing where or who she is, why she’s on her knees, or who she might have attacked or hurt, whether she’s been screaming or sobbing or something else.

“It will be a strange thing,” she concedes thoughtfully. “Sleeping without fear.”

 _Doing anything without fear,_ she doesn’t add.

But she suspects, as she turns to the door with shaking limbs, that they hear it just the same.

*

She hesitates when they reach the steps of the palace.

Tripitaka touches the back of her hand, looks up at her with empathy and understanding. She doesn’t need to ask why Sandy is suddenly so pale and sweaty; she already knows, and she does not — will not, will never — judge her for it.

“It’s okay,” she says, an answer to a question Sandy lacks the courage to ask. “There’s probably a million rooms in this place. If you don’t want to go back there yet, if you don’t feel up to facing them, it’s okay.”

Sandy tries to smile. Fails, and gives up with a sigh. “Not _them_ ,” she admits, feeling a little ashamed. “Should be, I know. But I don’t feel so much when I think about her. Only him.”

Tripitaka is quiet for a moment, contemplative. Sandy looks up at the palace, a great looming presence, stretching endlessly up to the clouds and towering over the town like a living threat. She spent many years sneaking around the halls and corridors, learning Locke’s plans, finding out as much as she could about their operations, about what they did with the gods they captured, about what being a god meant in the first place. For a very long time, ironically, it was the only source of information she had about herself and her kind.

She realises now, as she couldn’t have possibly known back then, just how twisted that is. But at the time, alone and as starved for knowledge as she was for sustenance...

She shudders. Shakes off the thought. Looks away from the palace and back at Tripitaka. Her anchor, even now, even with her mind intact.

Finally, after a long moment, Tripitaka speaks again. “Him or them,” she says, still weighted down with so much empathy. “Either way, it’s okay.”

Sandy feels something lodge itself in her throat. Good or bad, she's not sure, but she can’t seem to swallow it down. “I may need you to tell me that quite often,” she mumbles. “Is that...”

“Yeah.” And she smiles like sunlight, like the kind of warmth Sandy is only just beginning to appreciate and not fear. “That’s okay too.”

The Shaman rolls his eyes, annoyed as he always is by all the sentimentality. “Wherever you choose to rest,” he grumbles, “please at least try to make a decision before two of the three of us die from old age.”

Sandy starts a little at that; the ‘us’ is unexpected, even if the impatience and sarcasm is not. He doesn’t need to be there with them any more, she knows, and it speaks volumes for his empathy that he is still by her side even now that he’s finished his task. She can’t feel him inside her head any more, and she expects the reverse is true also, that he can no longer sense the tumult of her thoughts, that he has finally extricated himself from inside her mind. No need to remain, she supposes, but it’s also left him blind in a way she suspects he’s not accustomed to. He won’t leave her side, it seems, while he can’t rely on his powers to let him know if they are needed.

It’s touching. But she knows better than to say so out loud.

Instead, she nods and says, to both of them, “Can we find an empty room? Somewhere away from... from them?”

Tripitaka nods. “We can face them together when we’re rested. When you’re feeling more like yourself.”

“Don’t really know what ‘myself’ feels like,” Sandy sighs. “It’s been so long since I did, I’m not sure I would recognise her, even if she was right in front of me.”

Tripitaka doesn’t tell her that’s okay. Doesn’t tell her anything at all. She just leans in, lifting herself up onto her toes, and presses her warm face against the curve of Sandy’s jaw.

It is more comforting than it should be, the silence and the contact. It is not enough, but it makes everything quieter. Tripitaka is so, so good at making the world quieter.

Sandy pulls away with reluctance after a too-brief moment, nodding silently. She’s still uncomfortable, still hesitant to re-enter this place that caused so much misery, but stronger now, courage taking shape in the fleeting quiet. Brave enough, at least to step up and slip through the palace doors, into the halls and corridors she’s walked a thousand times as a ghost; strange to walk them so brazenly now.

She’s not sure she’ll ever get used to that, coming and going as she pleases, uncaring if she’s seen or if she’s noticed, no longer needing to fear for her life if she spends too much time in the world. Learning to bloom under the sun instead of withering and going blind, learning to follow the footsteps of other people, to walk behind them or beside them or in front of them, to walk among them like she belongs.

Still strange, even now. She wonders sometimes, what it must feel like to be a god like Monkey, who lived his whole life in that way, at least before his imprisonment. Cocksure, confident, unafraid of anything, and why would he be? Never hunted, never hated. Free to breathe, to bask and bloom and _be_.

She used to wonder what it was like for Pigsy, too. Being able to walk around in broad daylight, untouchable with a demon’s power behind him. It’s not something she wants to think about any more, though; now, with the wisdom of hindsight, she thinks she’d sooner live as she did, in filth and fear, than pay the price he did to sleep in the lap of luxury.

They find a smallish room to take their rest, an old guest bedroom of sorts, with a small bed and a couple of chairs. A little cramped and poorly kept, Sandy has a sneaking suspicion it was meant for less-than-welcome visitors.

She wonders, feeling suddenly sick, if this was where the Druid slept during his visit.

The idea is so visceral, so much a nightmare, she almost turns around and runs away.

Doesn’t, though. She has slightly more courage than that, at least.

She doesn’t go near the bed, though. Can’t, not now the idea is in her head. She hunches down in a corner of the room, instead, as far away from all the furniture as she can possibly get without leaving, and pretends it’s chivalry, not horror, that compels her to offer the bed to the Shaman.

“Considerate,” he murmurs, in a tone that makes it quite clear he can see the truth of it. “Unnecessary, of course. But considerate nonetheless.”

“Used to sleeping on the floor,” Sandy mutters, scowling down at the carpet. “Don’t need a bed. Don’t even like beds.”

Tripitaka, not feeling quite so generous, pouts and says, “ _I_ like beds.”

Sandy doesn’t know why that makes her bristle, why it bothers her as much as it does that Tripitaka would not see her reasoning when even the Shaman can. She should not expect so much from her, she knows, but it still stings to see her pouting and so petulant, to know that she sees nothing more in this than a bed and a stubborn god who doesn’t want her to be comfortable.

Should be open with her, she knows. Should be honest, explain her discomfort and where it comes from. Instead, she huddles in her corner, scowling and muttering, “Share with him then, if you like it so much.”

Tripitaka blinks. “I...”

“I’m sleeping here,” Sandy goes on, ignoring her. “With you, or by myself. Suppose it doesn’t matter, if I’m fixed anyway. Suppose it means I don’t need you any more. Don’t need you to...”

Stops, willing her hands to stop shaking. It’s untrue, of course, and even Tripitaka — as oblivious as she is to her discomfort about the bed — can see that.

Sandy wonders, afraid and awed at the same time, if there will ever come a day when she doesn’t need her, when she can say those words and really mean them. She doubts it; she needed her long before this ever happened, before they even met each other. For years she wrapped the name around herself, wore it like a blanket, a shroud, kept it close like a loving friend, the only one she had, a whisper in the dark to give her hope; for so long, Tripitaka was the only reason she had to stay alive, and now—

Now she’s the thing that keeps her sane. Now she holds her mind and her heart in her hands, chases away the spasms in her stomach and the screams in her head, the terrible things that happened to her and the terrible things she did. They’ve both come so far since that night in the sewer, but sometimes Sandy wonders if she’s made no progress at all; even now, safe and sheltered and loved, slowly learning what it means to be whole and healing, still she holds onto Tripitaka’s name like it’s her home.

 _I don’t need you any more,_ she thinks, and wishes she could convince herself that it’s true. But the corner is so cold and dark when she’s the only one in it, and she can’t hide her relief when Tripitaka sighs, throws up her hands in surrender, and stalks back across the room.

“Fine,” she grumbles, sitting sullenly down beside her. “I guess I’ll just have to get used to back pain.”

Sandy doesn’t cry, but it’s a very close thing. Tripitaka is studying her closely, like she thinks she’s losing her mind again and is trying to convince herself that’s okay. She still can’t fathom why the bed might be a source of fear, why any part of this place might make her uncomfortable after all they’ve endured, but the way she looks at her says it doesn’t matter. If spending the night in a corner is important to Sandy, that’s all she needs to know.

Sandy feels infinitely small next to such a vast wave of faith and love.

“Good,” she says, though that’s not at all what she means. “If sleeping on the floor makes your back hurt, perhaps I’ll be able to take care of you for a change.”

Tripitaka chuckles, elbows her lightly in the ribs. “Get some sleep.”

Sandy nods, happy to let the moment go. Lies down in the corner, without blankets or pillows or anything else. Just herself and the solid floor and the familiar weight of Tripitaka’s arms around her waist. Comfortable. Warm.

Still, it’s not as easy as it should be, getting her body to relax, reminding it that it’s safe now, that everything is safe. She can’t quite let go of the dread she’s felt for so long, the fear of losing herself when she falls asleep. Even knowing it won’t happen — _probably_ won’t happen — still it takes far longer than she’d like to admit to will her body into stillness, to keep it from panicking. Her limbs are heavy, her head heavier, but it’s so strange and so difficult, reteaching herself to not be afraid.

She closes her eyes with a great force of effort, keeps them closed by sheer exhaustion. Hard to calm down, yes, but much harder to keep awake once she’s there, when Tripitaka’s breathing is already slow and rhythmic against the side of her head, when she can feel the steady rise and fall of her her chest against her back, the weight of her arm across her waist. She’s spent so much time following Tripitaka in every detail of her life, it comes almost as second nature to follow her in this too.

Down she falls, her body resisting even as her mind starts to drift, and every time she twitches herself awake Tripitaka pulls her a little closer, holds her a little tighter, murmurs sleepy reassurances in her ear.

“S’all right.” Slurred with drowsiness, so relaxed that Sandy can’t do anything but believe that it’s true. “I’m here. Go to sleep.”

And what else can Sandy do, really, but the same thing she always does when Tripitaka tells her to do something?

She slows her breathing right down, pushes her body back into those warm, comfortable arms, and obeys.

*

She wakes, many hours later, from a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

 _Rested_.

Opens her eyes to sunlight, pale hazy streaks streaming in through the window, bathing the room in a warm, beatific glow. Mid-morning, she guesses, possibly even later. Her sleep-tinged mind is still too groggy to make sense of very much, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that that’s a lot of sleep. All night, even, and some more hours either side.

She doesn’t think she’s ever slept so much all at once. Not even before this, not even when sleep wasn’t something to fear. Always half-alert, she’s learned to sleep like a cat. Never too much, never too deep. This...

This is new. And rare. And not at all unpleasant.

She lies there for a short while, just soaking up the light and the warmth, marvelling at how easy it is now to guess the time of day, to tell how early or late it is by the heat of the sun, the shades of the light, the way it plays off her eyes and her skin. When she first started travelling with Tripitaka and the others, unaccustomed as she was to any kind of daylight, she used to suffer the most unbearable headaches and couldn't see much of anything at all. Now, against all odds, she’s starting to feel like she belongs here.

The thought warms her, almost more than the light. She looks down to find Tripitaka still asleep, limbs still wrapped around her, head resting lazily on her shoulder. Smiling in her sleep, at perfect peace.

Watching her, feeling a twinge of guilt in her gut, Sandy wonders how long it’s been since Tripitaka got a good night’s rest, since she was able to sleep through the night without being rudely awakened by screams or sickness or sobbing.

Too long. Definitely too long.

On the other side of the room, the bed is empty. Pristinely made, like it was never used, and the Shaman is nowhere to be seen. Sandy wonders if he wanted to leave her and Tripitaka alone in peace and privacy, or whether he simply wanted a little time and space for himself.

They’ll find out soon enough, she supposes. Looking at the bed still makes her insides squirm, so she turns away, blocking it out.

She lies on her back for a time, watching the sunlight play across the ceiling, across the walls, across Tripitaka’s beautiful, tranquil face.

She holds her as close as she can, careful and loving, like the precious, perfect human she is. Holds her, awed by the simplicity of it, of holding her for no reason other than because she wants to, because they are tangled together and sleepy and rested. Not clutching at her, clinging on for dear life, holding onto herself as well, simply holding her because she is warm and it is morning, because the world around them is silent and sweet and soft and so is the inside of her head.

It is unimaginably beautiful, and so impossible, and for a time there is nothing, inside her head or outside, only peace and quiet and love. _Thriving_ , as close to it as she has ever felt.

Tripitaka comes around slowly, humanly. Stirring and stretching, the movement shifts her head so she wakes with her face pressed to the crook of Sandy’s neck. She yawns, breath hot against Sandy’s jaw, and looks up at her with sleepy affection in her eyes. Gazing down at her, awed and a little breathless, Sandy thinks she’s never seen anything more intimately beautiful in her life.

She doesn’t move. Is almost a little bit afraid to move. She doesn’t want to ruin the first moment in too long where no-one is in any pain.

Well. Not real pain, at least. Tripitaka still groans and grimaces when she sits up, massaging her neck and complaining about her so-called back pain.

“We’ve been travelling together for months now,” Sandy points out, not sitting up herself. “You’ve slept on rocks. In the rain.”

Tripitaka grunts her disapproval. She stands, circling the room a couple of times to stretch out her muscles, then turns back to scowl playfully at Sandy. “It’s different when it’s outside,” she huffs. “But when there’s a perfectly functional bed, it just seems silly. You know I’m not a god, right? Prone to human weaknesses?”

Sandy bristles, feeling a little of the warmth evaporate. “Do we have to keep talking about this?” she asks sourly. “The bed looked unpleasant. Didn’t want to be near it. No way of knowing who or... or _what_ has slept there before.”

“Oh.” Understanding washes over Tripitaka’s face, clearing away the minor irritation and leaving her with a tight, chastened expression. “That’s... uh, okay. Sure. You know, now that I think about it, a bit of back pain is no big deal.”

Sandy doesn’t bother to respond. She sits up carefully, feeling out her body and her mind, every part of her that has become so accustomed to misery and suffering. She doesn’t feel particularly stiff or sore, not like Tripitaka apparently does; there is very little sensation inside her at all, only calm and steadiness and that warm, relaxed feeling of having finally gotten a good night’s sleep.

Her mind feels better too, though slightly less steady than her body. Still too much to think about, too much to dread going forward; she still feels on edge when she thinks about things she shouldn’t. Fear and uncertainty, awareness of things she never really thought about before, things that are suddenly heavier or darker, more frightening or more upsetting. Senselessness and noise, she supposes, to fill in the space where her broken mind once screamed.

She’ll get used to it. At least, she hopes she will.

If nothing else, it is easier to clear it now than it was before, easier to shake out the discomfort, to look around and seek out other things to focus on. She couldn’t do that before, couldn’t silence the chaos inside of her once it began, the slipping and sliding, dissolving of past and present. It is no less unpleasant than it was then, but now it has become manageable; at long last, her mind is her own.

After so long spent struggling against it, so much time spent thinking of her own head as her enemy, it is an unspeakable relief. To be able to think for herself, to be able to control her own thoughts... it is beyond her imagining. And the difference is significant enough that she is able to find the courage to stand, to look Tripitaka in the eye, take a deep breath, and say:

“I should try to speak with him.”

 _Him_.

Still can’t say his name. Still can’t even think it without starting to tremble, but even the trembling feels like something she can control now. A strange, welcome sensation, feeling her body react with fear and knowing that it’s normal.

Tripitaka furrows her brow, thoughtful and just a little bit protective. “You should,” she agrees cautiously. “But if you don’t feel up to it...”

“I don’t,” Sandy says, with stark, rough-edged honesty. “But I’m more at peace with myself now than I have been in... in longer than I can remember. The task won’t get any easier. If not now, while I’m well-rested and steady, when would you suggest I try? When one of us is in mortal peril? As a final confession when we’re gasping our last breath?”

Given the way they live their lives, it’s not entirely unlikely. Tripitaka concedes the point with a sigh, though her expression makes it clear she doesn’t approve of the way she phrased it.

“Do you want me to be there with you?” she asks, declining to comment on Sandy’s wry melodrama. “For moral support or something? Or would you rather do this by yourself?”

It’s an easy question. Also a very, very difficult one.

“I do want you to be there,” Sandy says, and lets the truth of it ground her for a sweet, simple moment. “But I don’t think you should be. I think I need... I mean, I think _we_ need... I mean...” She clenches her teeth, hating her weakness with words, her inability to make anything make sense. “I don’t think you can help me. And I don’t think you should try to. Even if I want you to. Even if I really, _really_ want you to.”

And she does. Oh, she does.

Tripitaka nods. Sort of sad, but sort of proud at the same time; it’s a strange look, and it makes Sandy feel like maybe she made herself make sense after all.

“I think you’re right,” Tripitaka says, very softly.

With perhaps a touch more bitterness than she should, Sandy wonders why being right is always so difficult.

“Still don’t know what to feel,” she says with a sigh. “I thought it would be easier now, being myself again, being mended, having a whole mind to think with. Thought the anger would be quieter, thought the fear would be less, thought the bad emotions would be easier to control. Thought I would be able to endure the sight of his face, or even just the thought of the sight of his face, without wanting to run away and hide or throw myself at him, or...” Too many things to name; she gives up, shaking her head. “But it’s exactly the same.”

“Not exactly the same,” Tripitaka says. “You might feel the same things, but you understand them better now. You have what you need to heal, you can...” She closes her eyes for just a split-second longer than a blink, then looks Sandy in the eye. “I think it’ll help. Making yourself talk to him. Putting your feelings into words. Even if you’re not sure what they are.”

Sandy knows this, of course. Knows that the only way to make peace with her emotions, the only way to make sense of them, is by facing them — and facing _him_ — head-first. She’ll never be able to figure out what she feels about all this, about Pigsy in particular, if she’s too afraid to ever look him in the eye again. She doesn’t need Tripitaka and her earnest, open face to tell her that.

Still, somehow, hearing it from her makes the blow just a little less brutal.

“Don’t have to like it,” she says, mostly to herself. “But I’ll do it.”

Tripitaka crosses back to her side, hugs her fiercely. “I know you will.”

She sounds so awed, so proud. Sandy desperately wishes she knew how to feel those things about herself, but she doesn’t. Can’t. Everything she does and thinks and feels is such a struggle, such a desperate force of effort simply to keep it all inside. Even now, even mended and mostly whole. She thought that would make it easier to be normal, or at least to pretend to be, but it remains just as elusive as ever.

Maybe she wasn’t as wrong as she thought, believing for all those years that her madness came from solitude, from isolation, from the way she lived her life. Perhaps some part of it did, after all.

A valuable lesson. Hard, just like everything else, but valuable.

Grudgingly, she pulls out of Tripitaka’s arm. Turns towards the door.

“Made it this far,” she says. “What’s one more day of misery?”

Tripitaka laughs. It’s a musical sound, lifting and lilting, and it balms Sandy’s quaking heart more than she’ll ever dare admit.

“That’s the spirit,” she says, and throws open the door so Sandy won’t have to.

*

They pause outside the master bedroom.

Nervous, pulse hammering like a drum in her neck, Sandy lets her old instincts take over. She makes herself small, then presses an ear to the door and listens. Wants to know — _has_ to know — what sort of an atmosphere she’s about to walk into, what sort a of mood Pigsy’s in, what sort of expression he’ll be wearing when she finally dares to look him in the eye.

She can feel Tripitaka frowning behind her, but if she finds the caution confusing she keeps it to herself. Keeps one hand on Sandy’s back, palm pressed flat, not moving, a silent reminder that she is still there, always, even through the things she doesn’t understand.

As grateful as she is, Sandy doesn’t acknowledge it. Doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe. Just listens.

On the other side of the door, two familiar voices, tight but not raised:

“—better off if you did,” Locke is saying, thick with derision and a touch of impatience. “Surely even you can see that.”

“You always were too quick to dismiss me,” Pigsy says. Loud enough to carry, but strangely subdued, at least by his standards. Sandy suspects he’s upset, possibly hearing some unpleasant truth he doesn’t want to accept. “Quick to underestimate the rest of them, too. We’ve come through worse than this. We’ll be fine.”

“Worse than this? Really?” Locke’s laugh is crude, a cackle that sends sparks cascading down Sandy’s spine. “Think you’re the one doing the underestimating here, love. That girl hates your guts.”

“You really want to believe that, don’t you?” He tries to sound angry for perhaps a fraction of a second, but then the wrath bleeds out of him like it was never there; when he finds his voice again, he just sounds old and tired. “Well, maybe it’s true. Can’t say I wouldn’t deserve it if it was. But it doesn’t change anything. If she wants me to go, I’ll go. I’ll take it. But I’m still not going to...”

He trails off with a sigh that morphs into a sort of growl. Sandy can’t see through the wooden door, but she can picture his helpless frustration clearly enough.

“Don’t see why you’re suddenly so precious about it,” Locke mutters huffily. “You’d have the run of the place, you know. And you could do a whole lot worse.”

“I don’t care. I’m done with all that.” He makes another sound, definitely closer to a growl this time. “And it doesn’t matter, anyway. Because after this...” A rustle of fabric, like he’s gesturing frenetically. Pacing, maybe, or turning away violently so he won’t have to look at her as he goes on: “Hell, I’ve forgiven you a lot. Turned a blind eye to things I should’ve spoken up about, done who-knows-what to keep the peace and keep you...”

He trails off, awkwardly clearing his throat.

Locke, typically unshy, doesn’t let him get away with trying to be coy. “Keep me wanting you, eh?”

Silence, then, for a long, excruciating moment.

Long enough that Sandy thinks about throwing the door open and putting Pigsy out of his misery. She doesn’t, but not out of malice; she needs to hear the conversation end, needs to hear him pour out his heart before she can find the courage to do the same with her own.

“Yeah.” A shaky breath; she suspects he’s trying to maintain some small semblance of self-respect, and probably failing. “Yeah, that. But not any more. Never again, as long as you keep doing this... this _thing_ you keep bloody doing.”

“And what thing would that be, love?” Unsubtle, of course, and forcing him to be the same way; Sandy would expect no less. “Because I can think of a fair few, though I doubt you’d thank me for listing them.”

“Stop doing that!” He’s really distressed now, seemingly on the brink of tears; Sandy can hear them clogging his voice, making it even thicker than it already is. “This is what I’m talking about, Locke, this right here. We just spent the best part of a week trying to patch up some little bit of what we did to her, and you’re still lying about joking about it like it never even mattered. Like you still don’t _care_.”

“It was a job.” Her voice is a bit tighter now, though; possibly just exertion, possibly just frustration, but still it makes something hopeful spark inside Sandy’s chest. “A bloody job, you fool, nothing more and nothing less. If I shed a tear for every stupid god we sent off to be broken, we both would’ve drowned a century ago.”

“Maybe we should have,” Pigsy mutters. Low, under his breath, like he doesn’t really want her to hear it. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve changed, you haven’t. And until you do — until you show a bit of bloody remorse, at least! — there’s never going to be anything here for me.”

Neither of them speak for a long moment after that. Sandy listens to the rhythm of their breathing, his rapid and hard, hers slow and even. One of them, it seems, is rather more affected by this conversation than the other. She wishes she could be surprised by that, wishes she could feel anything but disappointment and the queasy rumble of trepidation.

Finally, after a short eternity, Locke sighs and says, “So that’s it, then?”

“Yeah.” He says it without hesitation, but not without regret. Sandy doesn’t know how to feel about that; she understands, of course, but it still stings. “Whatever they decide to do with me... whatever _she_ decides to do with me... I’ll take it. No complaints. I’ve run from my punishment long enough. But you...” He swallows audibly, convulsively. “I’ll always feel for you. Hell, you know that well enough by now. But I can’t go back to what I was, not when I’ve worked so bloody hard to get to what I am. And you don’t want to change at all. I’d meet you halfway, but you couldn’t even go that far.”

Sandy jolts, pulling away from the door and reeling a little. It’s nothing she didn’t already know, of course, but still the words seem to reach into her ribcage and squeeze her breathless.

Tripitaka is still touching her back, fingertips pressing lightly but otherwise motionless; the contact makes Sandy feel trapped, stagnant, and so she shakes it off. Takes a couple of long steps, spins in a slow circle, trying to shake off the conflict of what she heard, what she already knew.

Doesn’t understand why it makes a difference, hearing things with her own ears, seeing them with her own eyes, but it does. No doubt Tripitaka would say it’s normal, like Sandy has any idea of what that means. And even if it is, it doesn’t help.

She takes a moment to compose herself, to force the words to the back of her mind, to will herself not to think too much or too hard. Doesn’t know why it makes a difference, hearing it said — ‘I’ll always feel for you’ and ‘I’d meet you halfway’, like it hasn’t been written all over his face for as long as she’s known him — but somehow it does. Makes it more real, perhaps. Either way, it takes her longer than she’d care to admit to process all that, to swallow it down and shove it aside.

Doesn’t matter. She knows his mood now. Knows what to expect from him, knows who she’ll be sharing her pain with: a wretched, run-down old god who is tired of running from his sins.

She takes a deep breath, eyes closed and forehead pressed against the rough wood of the door. Then, with Tripitaka less than a step behind her, she throws it open and steps into the room.

It’s just the two of them in there, completely alone. No Monkey, no Shaman, just _them_. Sandy doesn’t know if that makes it easier or harder.

Pigsy yelps when they enter, jumping back from the bed like he’s been burned, like he thinks it’s some kind of heinous act just to be standing near it. Sandy quirks a brow, but she doesn’t tell him it’s not.

Locke, characteristically, has neither tact nor shame. She blows a sly little kiss at Pigsy as he slinks away from her, then cocks her head at Sandy like she’s trying to decide how far her charm will carry her.

Not very. Sandy doesn’t even try to keep her expression neutral.

“You’re looking well,” she says, trying a little too hard to sound like she was hoping for the opposite. Doesn’t really sell it, though; her pulse is hammering in her neck, visible and probably audible, belying her sharp tone. “Back to your prison soon.”

Locke snorts, more amused than affronted. “Can’t wait,” she says, sounding surprisingly sincere. “Could use a change of scenery. This room isn’t half so pretty when you’re stuck in bed all bloody day.”

Something in the way she says it settles unpleasantly in Sandy’s chest, her stomach. A little too close to guilt, it curdles inside her, making her guts churn.

She swallows it down with some effort, but can’t quite keep the discomfort out of her voice when she says, “Yes, thank you for that. Letting us use your memories, I mean. I understand the price was... not small.”

Locke shrugs; for the first time, Sandy thinks she sees a crack in her bravado.

“Least I could do, eh, given that I’m half the reason you needed it in the first place.”

She doesn’t sound especially sincere, though, and there’s certainly no trace of the remorse Pigsy wanted so desperately to see in her. Possibly talking with him has soured her mood somewhat; by her standards, she’s practically sulky. Sandy doesn’t question her, opting instead to focus on the words. They stick in her chest, her throat, make her feel unpleasant, and she hates that even this isn’t simple.

Fact is, whether she likes it or not, it’s not really true. Locke is the easiest scapegoat for all of this, but she’s also the one who did the least. She may have instigated the whole affair, at least as far as raiding the tavern was concerned, but she was careful to keep her hands out of the dirty details. Given the choice, Sandy recalls, she’d wanted to wash her hands of it as soon as the Druid showed up on her doorstep; she can no more be blamed for his demands than she can be blamed for Pigsy’s ill-advised act of compassion, of ignoring his instructions for a cause he believed was right.

Still, though, the unpleasantness sticks. She turns away from the bed and the monster in it, and faces Pigsy instead. No less of a monster, not really, but at least his part in this is clear.

“We should talk,” she says.

Quick and sharp, without preamble, it sounds almost like an order. She’s not proud of that, but it’s the only way it can be; anything less, and she’d lose what little courage she still has.

He flinches at the sharpness, though, jerking backwards like he’s been struck. _Not yet_ , Sandy thinks, and instantly hates herself for it.

“Yeah.” He swallows, eyes bulging, skin ashen. “Suppose we should, at that.”

But neither one of them are particularly inclined, or perhaps able, to get started. Sandy feels like she’s rooted in place, unable to move; she can only stand there, staring down at her boots, sort of secretly hoping they’ll start talking on her behalf. The few occasions she’s brave enough to glance up and look in Pigsy’s direction, she finds his eyes downcast as well, like he wants the ground to open up and swallow him before he has to actually do anything.

To no-one’s surprise, then, it’s Tripitaka who takes the initiative for them. She crosses the room, as quiet an unobtrusive as she always is, and sits herself down in the chair by the bed.

“You two should take a walk,” she urges, with her usual monastic decorum. “Talk things through with some fresh air and a change of scenery.”

Sandy grunts her agreeability; she wants to thank Tripitaka for the intervention, but her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth and she can’t seem to remember how to unstick it.

Pigsy, meanwhile, is looking at Locke again. “I, uh, I shouldn’t...”

Sandy does not flinch. And she definitely doesn’t indulge a brief violent fantasy involving her scythe and the bedframe.

Perhaps sensing the turn of her feelings, Tripitaka clears her throat. “I can keep an eye on her,” she says quickly. “Stop her from starting trouble if she gets any ideas.”

“Can you?” Pigsy raises his bushy eyebrows all the way up to his hairline. “She’s not _that_ weak, you know. Could still eat a human for breakfast.”

“Yeah, but why would I want to?” As charming as ever, Locke, and Sandy has to fight to keep from baring her teeth. “They’re nothing but skin and bones. Especially that one.” She cuts Tripitaka a quick, mostly careless look. “No offence, eh? But I’m much better off sitting tight and waiting for your pretty Shaman to come back with something that’s actually edible.”

Sandy starts at that, so thrown she almost forgets to be angry. “The Shaman went to get breakfast?”

Locke shrugs her affirmation, like this is nothing out of the ordinary at all. “So he says. And why would I go and start kicking up a fuss now, with a decent meal already on the way?”

A fair point, Sandy supposes. Locke has never shown much interest in going out of her way for anything, and certainly not when she could just as easily sit tight and get what she wants that way. Still, the idea of leaving Tripitaka alone with her, well-behaved or otherwise, makes her more than a little uneasy.

“Are you sure?” she asks, trying to keep her tone even. “Would you really feel comfortable being alone with her?”

“I’ve held my own against demons before,” Tripitaka reminds her. “But if it’ll make you feel better, you can tie her to the bed.”

Though she knows it’s meant mostly in jest, the thought makes Sandy’s insides squirm. Too close to memory, she supposes, the phantom pressure of straps across her chest, restricting her breathing, of hard leather cutting into her wrists, her ankles, holding her down, holding her _down_ —

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” she croaks, suddenly struggling to keep her legs under her. “She’s been cooperative thus far.”

“She knows what’s good for her,” Pigsy agrees, a sour-faced mutter aimed mostly at himself. “It’s the one bloody thing she does know.”

And so saying, he spins on his heels and storms out of the room.

Sandy doesn’t immediately follow. She lingers, still trying to catch her breath, uncomfortable in more ways than she can put into words, more ways than she really understands herself. Doesn’t want to see anyone restrained, not even Locke, not even a monster who deserves far worse, but her chest weakens just thinking about leaving Tripitaka here with her, leaving her unprotected and unsafe, leaving her—

Leaving her.

 _Oh_.

She’s afraid, she realises, embarrassingly late. Afraid of being without her, of stepping out under the sky without her anchor to hold her to the ground. Afraid of having to open herself up and take a long hard look at her emotional insides without Tripitaka there to help her make sense of them. Afraid of what waits for her out there, Pigsy and a conversation neither one of them wants, of having to engage with the one person who still terrifies her, all without her tether to keep her safe and strong.

Selfish. Stupid. She won’t humiliate herself by saying it. Not when she’s the one who insisted she could do this alone. She won’t. She—

“Sandy.” But of course Tripitaka senses all of that, everything, without having to hear a word. “It’ll be fine.”

“Will it?” She hates how small she sounds, not like her younger self, a helpless frightened child, but like a weak, worthless god who can’t do anything for herself. “I don’t...”

“I know. But it’s okay.” Her smile ignites, washing away a little of the fear. “Go. Talk. Find some peace.”

It is such a small, simple instruction. But it feels so unbearably big.

Still, because obedience to Tripitaka is the one constant in Sandy’s life, she nods, finds a shaky smile, and goes.

*

They walk a lot, her and Pigsy, but for a long time they don’t talk at all.

They’ve crossed the entire length of the village twice, back and forth, before Sandy finds the courage to try and speak, and even then she has no idea what she wants to say. She doesn’t know if there’s anything she can say, if there are any words either one of them can say to make this better, to make her complex, confused feelings make any sort of sense. Doesn’t want to try, really, but she knows she has to.

Still, it’s only when the silence grows more unpleasant than the dread that she finds the courage to start, to swallow down all the moisture on the air, hold it in her lungs, then clears her throat and asks, in a tiny, tremulous voice:

“When did you know?”

He frowns. “Eh?”

Not what he was expecting as an opener, apparently; his confusion might be comical if Sandy wasn’t feeling so sick inside. Still, she takes the victory for what it is, small and meaningless, but a crack in the ice just the same.

“We fought each other many times,” she says, by way of explanation. “Locke says she never knew who I was. Assumed you’d killed me like a good boy. But you didn’t, and you knew that. Then, all those years later, when I was older and stronger and powerful, when I’d learned for myself what was right and stood against you... you spent so much time with me... with _her_... you must have had some idea that we were the same.”

“Oh.” He’s still frowning. “Does... uh, does it really matter?”

“No.” True enough; it won’t change the colours of their past conflicts, won’t even paint them with new ones. What’s done is done, and she never fought him for her own benefit anyway. “But I didn’t know where else to begin.”

“Fair enough.” He sort of smiles a bit at that, like maybe it makes things a little easier. For a moment, at least, and then he sobers and sighs and it all gets heavy and difficult again. “I had no idea what’d happened to you. Wasn’t exactly welcome at the tavern after what I’d done, and by the time Monica finally let me come crawling back, you were long gone. For all I knew, she’d given up on you. I mean, I hoped she might find a way to... to wake you. But I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want...”

“You didn’t want to know,” Sandy says flatly. “I wasn’t your problem any more. And if you knew, either way, you’d have to bear the guilt again.”

“I...” He closes his eyes, misses a step and almost goes tumbling to the ground. Opens them again, and says, “Yeah.”

Sandy sighs. This is not as easy as she’d hoped it would be. “She did wake me,” she says. “With magic. Then I clawed her eye out and ran.”

“You...” He blanches the colour of ash. “You... I mean... _you_?”

“Yes.” She doesn’t want to talk about this again, doesn’t want to think about it, but there is something spitefully satisfying about the sickened look on his face. “You didn’t tell her what you did to me. So she used magic to wake me, not knowing there was nothing left of my mind. So I woke, broken and shattered into pieces. Didn’t know who she was, didn’t know where I was. Didn’t know anything, only that I was scared and the world wanted to hurt me. Had to protect myself, had to get away, had to run and hide. So I...”

She trails off, suddenly feeling just as nauseated, just as guilty and horrified as he looks. She wonders if it will ever get any easier, thinking about that moment, remembering it, reliving it. Wonders if she’ll ever be able to talk about it without having to stop before she can finish.

She hopes not. Can’t bear the thought of letting it become so normal.

It’s a long moment before Pigsy finds his voice again. Sandy doesn’t blame him for that; it might be the only thing in the world she doesn’t blame him for right now, but there it is. Who wouldn’t struggle for words after hearing something so terrible?

Even if they weren’t directly responsible. Even if they weren’t—

“I didn’t know,” he whispers hoarsely. “I really didn’t.” He takes a moment to compose himself, visibly struggling, then takes a shaky breath and presses on. “I tried to stop myself from thinking about you at all. Didn’t let myself wonder too much, definitely didn’t ask questions. Blocked the whole thing out of my head, as best I could, and carried on with my life. You had to, back then.”

It’s not a nice thought. It’s also not surprising. Sandy doesn’t bother to pretend it was. “Of course you did,” she says. “That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“You asked.” He spreads his arms, lets her see the earnestness in him, the need to do right, to be honest now, at least, even if he couldn’t back when it actually mattered. “Anyway. It was decades before you showed your face again. I don’t know what you were doing all that time, but you kept yourself well hidden.”

“That _is_ what I was doing,” Sandy says angrily. It hurts more than it should, admitting it, remembering it. “Keeping myself out of sight. Hiding in the dark. Confused, broken, lost. Angry and frightened and alone. For _years_.” Her voice cracks; it makes him flinch, and so she says it again, just to twist the knife. “A _lifetime_.”

Guilt flashes behind his eyes, coloured by shame and grief. He shifts a little way away from her, giving them both space. Sandy thinks about crowding him, forcing him to endure her presence the way she was forced to endure his back then, but she needs to breathe just as desperately as he does.

“Right.” He sounds even more strained now, like he’s losing his footing, being pulled under by the weight of all this. “Point is, when you showed up all those years later, all grown up into a dark and deadly force of nature, I had no reason to imagine it was you. No reason to wonder if it might be... if _you_ might be...”

He doesn’t finish, but something in his voice tells the story his words don’t. Sandy frowns, trying to sift through it, to grasp the thread-thin straws of information. Comprehension is so often challenging, even on a good day.

“You did, though.” She wets her lips, hopes she’s reading this right. “Didn’t you?”

“I did, yeah.” There is something deeply confessional in the way he says it, the way he bows his head in a kind of penitent prayer; she might have been the one to say the words, but the truth is his, and the burden of admitting it too. “Like I said... no reason to put the pieces together, no reason to even think of you at all. But the second I saw your eyes, I just... I just _knew_. You’d changed completely, all of you, but not that.”

Sandy fidgets a bit, feeling unpleasantly scrutinised. “The madness, you mean?” The word tastes fetid on her tongue, like decay. “Yes, I was that way for a very long time. Still am.”

“No. Not... _no_.” He wrings his hands, clearly struggling for words. “Nothing like that. It was just... they were hers. Even when you were so violent, even when you were tearing demons into pieces with your bare hands, your eyes were still hers.”

Sandy doesn’t understand what that means, but she supposes it doesn’t really matter. What does is the fact that he knew. They fought each other for years after she grew into her powers and herself, once she was able to think clearly and venture back up to the surface, to take up arms against the demons she hated without ever truly understanding why. Years upon years of fighting like a wild creature, all teeth and claws — and some time later, the sharpened edge of a blade — and the whole time, he knew more about her than she did.

“How did you feel?” she asks, feeling numb. “Fighting me. Knowing who I was, what you’d done to me.” Her heart twists inside of her, an unpleasant sensation that sets her teeth on edge. “Did it feel like penance every time I landed a blow? Did you hear my childhood screams every time I made you bleed?”

“I... no.” He looks sad, like maybe he wishes he had. “I think I was just... relieved, mostly. When I left you with Monica, there was nothing left of you. You heard what Locke called you: a vegetable. I figured I’d left you there to die and I’d never see you again. Then you showed up again, all those years later, and suddenly you were... you were talented and fast and so damn powerful. You were _incredible_.”

And for a moment he sounds so proud, almost breathless with it, that Sandy almost forgets they were enemies.

“Had to be,” she says quietly, coming back to herself. “Only way I could have survived.”

“Yeah.” The look on his face shifts, sorrow deepening to heartbreak and shame, the self-loathing of a god who sold his body and soul to avoid exactly that life. “I guess I figured... you know, if you were able to grow up into something so strong and powerful, maybe what happened to you wasn’t so awful after all.”

Sandy wants to tell him that it was. Wants to make good use of her newly-restored memories, wants to make him blanch white again as he hears every nightmarish detail again and again and again, everything he made happen, every ounce of pain he inflicted. Wants to make him relive it as horribly as she has, wants him to go through it again and again, to suffer and sob and scream just like she had to.

She wants to torture him like she was tortured, but when she opens her mouth, all that comes out is:

“Didn’t know anything _had_ happened to me.”

And that—

The truth of it kind of cuts her open a little bit.

She remembers clashing with him more times than she can count, him and many of Locke’s other followers. Remembers killing, wounding, maiming, remembers being wounded and maimed a few times in turn. Remembers not even really understanding why she was fighting in the first place, only that she felt it right down to her bones, an instinctive duty to slay demons and their allies, reflexes countless years older than she was. She was wild and feral, brutal and most certainly mad. But the one thing she was not, through all those years, was _broken_.

At least, she never knew she was.

It’s only now, as she sees and learns and lives it all over again, the new and the old at the same time, that she realises what was actually happening, what she really was. Broken, yes, and damaged, and the moments of her life she couldn’t recall weren’t just lost to poor memory, they were taken from her by force.

All of a sudden those years look very different.

Possibly sensing her feelings or possibly just grappling with his own, Pigsy blurts out, “I don’t know how to make it right.”

“I don’t know either,” Sandy admits, shaking herself out of her troubled thoughts. “And I don’t know how to forgive you.”

“I...” He looks struck, but doesn’t try to deflect. “Yeah. I get that.”

Sandy wets her lips, swallows down the taste of salt. “I want to. At least, I think I want to. You’ve changed, I know that. I do want to forgive you, like Tripitaka would want me to. But I don’t know how.”

“Yeah. Uh.” A low, miserable sigh. “I wish I could... I...”

He’s wringing his hands again, so desperate to say something helpful, to take a step, however small, towards righting the decades-buried wrong that’s made a home in them both. He’s no better with words than she is, though, and hard as he tries to be sensitive and careful, his words only come out clumsy and awkward.

“It’s hard,” Sandy says, as awkward and useless as him. “I want it to be easy. I just want _something_ to be easy, but nothing is.”

Pigsy takes a deep breath, shakier than she’s ever heard from him, then stops walking.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Sandy lurches to a halt too, staring up at him with wide eyes. “Leave the quest?”

“Well, yeah.” He grimaces, like even just the thought causes him physical pain. “I mean, it wouldn’t be my first choice, you know? I like being a part of this. I like the company, and I like being a part of something that matters. But if you’re not comfortable having to look at my face every morning, or if you think you can’t trust me any more, or if me sticking around is going to make things harder for you... then, yeah, I’ll go.”

Sandy doesn’t know what to say. “Pigsy.”

“Yeah.” He’s not looking at her. She wonders if maybe he can’t. “There’s not a lot I can do to try and make this mess right. We both know that. But this... this, I can do. If you want me to.”

“I don’t.” The words burst out of her like a spasm, reluctant but utterly unwavering. “You’re too important. Tripitaka needs you.”

He snorts, derision and disbelief and a desperate attempt at making this less painful for them both. “Tripitaka’s a tough little fake-monk,” he says. “She’d get by just fine with you and Monkey, and you know it.”

“Untrue,” Sandy says, without hesitation. “You’re much stronger than I am, and much more worldly than Monkey. More grounded than both of us, when you want to be. More patient sometimes, too. And more...” She ducks her head, flushing with embarrassment, and tries to find a tactful way of phrasing herself. “More socially useful. You can sit in a crowded room and not draw attention to yourself. You can talk to people. Make them like you, make them listen. They’re not awed by you like they are by Monkey, not horrified or disgusted like they are by me.”

“Please.” She looks up to find him chewing his lip, looking very emotional. “You’re just trying to flatter me.”

“No. You’re valuable. Useful. And even if that wasn’t the case...” She swallows a couple of times, trying desperately and without success to find a smile. “You’re the only one of us who can cook.”

He makes a ragged choking sound at that, like a sob trying to be a laugh.

“True enough, I guess.” His expression flickers, and then the forced mirth falls off his face completely. “That’s not important, though. None of it is, not next to this.”

“It’s important to me,” Sandy says, very quietly. “I waited a long time for this, Pigsy. A very long time. While you were sleeping with a demon on feather pillows, I was waiting for Tripitaka to appear and take me out of the dark and give me a purpose. A chance to be something more than just...” Her voice breaks; her heart cracks a little too, inside her. “More than just a mad god in a sewer.”

He’s looking heartbroken too, eyes dark with tears, face twisted. “You were always more than that,” he rasps. “Always.”

It’s no comfort, coming from him. Sandy ignores it.

“And now I have that,” she says, as if he never spoke. “Now I am more than I ever thought I could be. I have a purpose, I have a place in the world, I have a life that is my own. I have a chance to... to _thrive_. And you...”

She stops, shaking her head.

 _You have a purpose now too,_ she doesn’t say. _You spent half your life hunting and kidnapping and torturing our kind. You did those things to me, and to countless others over the years, and the only reason you’re not still doing them is because Tripitaka gave your life meaning just like she did to me_.

She has a hundred reasons to never want to see Pigsy’s face again. But she will not take away from him the one thing — the only thing — that that ever made him better.

Maybe he understands that, maybe he doesn’t. Either way, he defers to her like she’s the one he wants to follow, like he’d throw himself off the edge of the world if she asked him to.

She won’t. But it means something, she supposes, that he would if she did.

“She asked me to come back, you know,” he says, a strange, strained sort of confession. “Locke, I mean. She figured you’d wash your hands of me after all this. Figured I’d have nowhere else to go.”

Sandy doesn’t tell him that she heard that already. Doesn’t tell him that she heard him turn down the offer, that she heard him swear that he’d changed. Doesn’t say that she heard every word, at least every word that matters. Let him think he still has some secrets to tell by choice. At least he’s trying, for once, to be honest and open, to be more than the coward they both know is still inside him.

“Not going to happen,” she tells him, more firmly than she feels. “You need this quest as much as I do, as much as we all do. Need to find a place in the world that comes from goodness and integrity, not hurting people to make yourself comfortable. Need to find penance within your soul, need to make peace with the awful thing you were and the better thing you... the better thing I _hope_ you want to become.”

He bows his head, as though in worship. Then, so quiet she almost doesn’t hear, he whispers, “But what about you?”

She doesn’t know. Truly, she doesn’t.

But she knows that she can’t make peace with herself and what was done to her if they part ways before she is able to look him in the eye, before she is able to speak to him like the almost-equals they were before this began. She knows that she can’t heal herself if she can’t heal their friendship, if she runs away from this because it’s too hard, too frightening, too _much_. She has spent too much of her life running and hiding; if she sends him away now, won’t it just be more of the same?

She owes it to herself, she thinks, not to do that. To take hold of what little courage she’s found, the courage that was forced upon her, and use it well.

And after everything they’ve been through together, she owes it to him a little bit too. He deserves a chance to prove he’s changed, to prove he is worthy of her forgiveness.

She wants him to prove it so badly. And she wants, even more badly, to be strong enough to accept it when he does.

“I want you to stay,” she says, and lets that be enough for now. “I want you to continue learning how to be a better person. I want to continue learning, as well, myself, how to forgive you and how to look at you and how to talk to you. I want to learn, with you, how to...”

How to heal. How to engage with her memories, the good and the bad and the worst. How to use and understand this new, slightly-less-broken version of her mind. How to be _herself_ , and to make peace with everything that means.

She can’t say that, though, Too personal, too deep, and she still doesn’t trust him to be the one to hear it.

That will take time. Perhaps more than they have, perhaps not. But either way, she can’t say it just yet.

He’s looking at her, though, like he needs to hear it. Like he needs to hear _something_ , at least, some small piece of where she is, so he knows where he stands, where they stand, together or apart. And there are tears in his eyes as he looks down at her, trembling with pain and grief and regret as deep as an ocean, and when he speaks he looks and sounds like a child, like the child she used to be, bright-eyed and hopeful, brimming with a depth of innocence that neither of them will ever know again.

“How to what?” he whispers, as small and scared under her gaze as she once felt under his.

Sandy can’t give him the answer he’s looking for. She can’t. But she can give him something. Something small, a little hopeful and maybe a little innocent too.

“How to cook,” she says, very softly. “I still need to learn that.”

He stares at her, mouth dropping comically open. “You _what_?”

Sandy doesn’t smile. Can’t smile. But when he continues to stare at her with his mouth hanging wide, she does not turn away and she does not hide.

“I still need to learn how to cook,” she says again, slowly this time. “And I think I’ll need your help with that. If you’re willing.”

For a long, endless moment he continues to stare.

Then he bursts into a heartfelt, tear-choked laugh.

He’s smart enough to keep his distance, smart enough not to try and touch her, but when she looks up and catches the tears glistening in his eyes and on his face, when she catches the twist of his mouth as he laughs, grieving and guilt-stricken and desperately grateful, still somehow a part of her feels touched just the same.

Tears in his eyes, in his laughter. Tears in his voice, too, when he’s finally able to speak.

“You daft little thing,” he laughs, and sobs. “Of course I’m bloody willing.”

*


	23. Chapter 23

*

They walk together for a little while longer.

Mostly quiet now, only passing glances and words that mean nothing. Not much left to say, and what little there is wouldn’t do either of them any good; it’s been a hard lesson but Sandy has grown to understand when it’s best to let a conversation lie.

She doesn’t expect the world to right itself with one brief moment, wouldn’t even particularly want it to. She feels unfinished, like a rough stone waiting to be chipped into a statue, and there’s still so much she needs to work through. Pigsy is a part of it, a big part, but he’s not the only one, and until she can process everything she’s been through, all of it, she knows she’ll never be comfortable around him. Perhaps even after she’s processed it, too; the way she feels, it’s hard to imagine feeling any other way. Can’t smother all that pain with talking, however badly they both might want to.

And so they just walk. Not Pigsy’s favourite activity, walking, but he endures it without complaint for her sake. At this point, Sandy has a sneaking suspicion he’d dive head-first into molten lava too, if she was the one asking him to do it, if he thought for even a second it might earn her forgiveness. She doesn’t have the heart to tell him that’s not how redemption works, that she won’t find it easier to look at him just because he’s walked half the length of the village without lamenting his sore feet or his aching back.

Still, because she can see how much of a struggle it is, not complaining, she shows some mercy. Another round of the village, burning off some of her nervous energy, then she turns and says, “Back to the palace?”

“Oh, yes, please.” Breathless, panting. Unsurprising, both of those things, but he tries to hide them just the same. “I mean, if you like? If you... if you feel okay, going back there, now you remember... uh, all of it.”

His lack of tact is not as endearing as it might have been a couple of weeks ago. Still, it doesn’t make Sandy bristle like she expects it to; perhaps all the talking has achieved something of merit after all.

“Okay isn’t the word I’d use,” she admits. “But it is where we made our base of operations. And it’s where Tripitaka is.”

The last part brings a blush to her face, wan and pale but undeniable. She expects him to be too self-involved, too unobservant to notice, but apparently he’s shrewder than she gives him credit for because he quirks a brow and musters a smile. Thin and tremulous, yes, but a smile just the same.

“Ah.” He coughs, not at all delicately. “You two have gotten pretty close, huh?”

“Hard not to,” Sandy says, feeling something unpleasantly acidic pooling in her belly. “She’s the one who needed to keep me anchored, tethered to myself, who had to stop the damage _you_ inflicted from tearing me apart.”

He grimaces. “Uh, yeah, that would definitely make a unique... uh, thing. But it’s nice to see, you know? Something good coming out of this mess.”

Without even realising her hackles are rising, Sandy feels a growl catching in her throat. “You don’t get to talk about it,” she grits out. “Not about her, not about us. Not you.”

The instant she says it, she wants to take it back. Wants to apologise too, maybe. He’s done nothing wrong, only talked to her with the same blithe carelessness he always has, a bit too crass and embarrassingly unsubtle but otherwise harmless. And she is not ashamed of her connection with Tripitaka, the countless ways this ordeal has brought them closer than they were even before the conflict at the North Water. She is not ashamed of the one good thing she has found, the only good thing — as he says — to come out of all this.

But he...

 _He_...

She doesn’t know why it bothers her, something so hallowed coming from him. After everything else she’s working through, all the other awful things she feels when she looks at him, this shouldn’t matter at all. But it does, and though a large part of her knows that he hasn’t done anything wrong, there’s another, small part that doesn’t care, that resents him anyway.

More tactful than the moment probably deserves, he clears his throat. “Right. Sorry. Didn’t mean to step over the line.”

Sandy sighs. “You didn’t,” she admits. “I just... I don’t want to hear about it from you. Not yet. And definitely not here.”

It’s not the whole of it, but she doesn’t really understand any more than that herself, so that’s as much as he’s going to get.

Seems to be enough for him, though. He swallows down a deep, hesitant breath, holds it for a long moment, then lets it out slow and careful, looking at her like he has more words in his heart than breath in his lungs to give them a voice.

“Look,” he says. “So, uh, tell me if I’m going too far again, but this... it’s okay. If there’s something you don’t want me to touch or talk about, even if you think it’s something stupid, it’s okay. Whatever it is, if it gets to you, just say the word and I’ll back off. Any reason, even no reason at all. Doesn’t matter. Okay?”

Sandy nods. Eyes stinging, prickling. Threatening tears yet again.

“You’re good at this,” she murmurs, trying to banish the tears by sulking instead of crying; it doesn’t really work. “Shouldn’t be. Don’t like it when you’re good at things. Especially when the thing is me.”

He chuckles, but the sound is like water, fluid and fleeting, and it makes the smile sort of trickle off his face.

“Yeah, I know. It’s not fair.” And he holds up a hand, like he wants to touch her but knows he can’t. “You want me to be bad at it instead? I can be really tactless if it’ll make you feel better? Or, uh, if it makes you feel worse, I guess. Whichever you need.”

Sandy growls again, a sort of whine like a cornered, wounded animal, trying to sound angry while feeling vulnerable. It’s too much, too difficult, and she just wants it to stop.

“No,” she says, frustrated and miserable. “Can we just go back to the palace now, please?”

He grimaces, clearly sensing that he’s stepped over another invisible line. “Right. Sure, of course.” He shrugs his shoulders, as though shucking off the moment, then turns around, studying the palace and hiding his face at the same time. “Let’s go.”

And off he strides, leaving Sandy to follow, watching his sad, bowed back and remembering how frightening it once was.

*

Back at the palace, Tripitaka is typically happy to see them.

She doesn’t ask any questions, how it went, whether they talked, whether they reconciled or made peace with each other or anything else at all; no doubt she’s bursting with curiosity, but she knows better than to foist it on them the instant they walk through the door. Instead, restraining herself admirably, she takes in the lines on Sandy’s face, the confusion and misery and the tiny little ghost of hope, holds out her arms, and smiles.

Sandy does not accept the open arms, nor does she return the smile. But she feels them like the sun on her face, warmth and comfort from something that once left her blind and sore.

The Shaman has rejoined them by this point, and so has Monkey. The three of them are crowded together around a modest-looking meal when Sandy and Pigsy re-enter, and Locke is complaining noisily from the bed, pointing out — not entirely without merit — that even prisoners get to eat.

Pigsy shoots back to her side immediately, like an arrow from a bow, and she gladly turns the bulk of her diatribe in his direction.

Sandy tries to ignore them. Tries to ignore everything. Slinks away to the darkest corner of the room, just as she always does, and huddles there on her own. Waits, with the quiet confidence of someone who’s done this a hundred times by now, for Tripitaka to break away from the others and join her.

And she does. Barely waits a moment, in fact, just scoops up an armful of random breakfast foods and crosses the room like it’s a matter of life and death. 

Though she knew it would happen, still Sandy feels a lump in her throat, emotion clogging her breath, making it ragged. Even now, even after everything they’ve been through together, she’s still so unused to being cared for like this.

Tripitaka’s smile is guarded but warm as she hands over a crust of bread and a bowl of a strange gruel-looking substance that looks tragically unappetising. The price to pay, Sandy thinks, grimacing, for letting the Shaman acquire their breakfast.

“That is...” She stares at it for a beat, trying to find a polite way of phrasing herself. “ _No_.”

Tripitaka chuckles her sympathy. “Why do you think I gave you the bread as well?” she says, amusement colouring her voice, then sobers a little. “You’re not allowed to skip breakfast today. No matter how unsatisfying it may be.”

Sandy winces. “This is an entirely new breed of torture, Tripitaka.”

The word hangs heavy for a moment, tension like a storm about to break, then it diffuses with Tripitaka’s smile.

“Yeah,” she says, sympathetic but unyielding. “But he meant well. He actually made an effort to make sure we got some food.” She glances at the Shaman, still on the other side of the room, watching in stoic silence as Monkey eats. “That’s not something to take lightly, not from him.”

Sandy does not take it lightly. Never has. Through all of this, she’s always appreciated the Shaman’s efforts, understood on a level that Tripitaka never truly will, just how many sacrifices he’s made for her, how completely he’s been forced to go against his nature. Not just as a former enemy, and one who has nearly as much reason to hate them as they do to hate him, but more simply as a demon using his powers to aid to a god. A demon who has reminded them all, emphatically and repeatedly, that his sole reason for existence is to bend and break her kind.

Tripitaka will never understand what that means. Even with her abundance of empathy, she’s still so tragically human. She cannot fathom what an impossible thing it is, compassion and kindness between their species.

Sandy grasps it rather better. Has to, being what she is. She has lived with those instincts her whole life, felt them gnawing at her for years before she even knew what they were. Swarming out from the shadows as soon as her powers had fully manifested, driven by an instinct she couldn’t understand, a ravenous, gnawing hunger that she could not sate and could not silence. _Demons_ , and the irrepressible need to destroy them.

She learned to control it, of course. Learned to understand what it was and what it meant. Slowly, discipline that took years to master, she learned because she had to, because the thing she was terrified her. But instinct is instinct, and she knows from experience exactly how difficult it can be to keep those urges in check.

No way to explain that to Tripitaka, though, no way to make a human understand reflexes and instincts she will never possess. And even if she knew how to express it, how to give voice to the unvoiceable, this is neither the time nor the place to try. And so she covers her face, forces down the inedible food, and tries to convince them both it’s for the Shaman’s sake and not the monk’s.

Tripitaka still doesn’t ask how things went with Pigsy. Carefully, intelligently, she keeps her questions below the surface, visible, like fish sparkling in a clear river, but unspoken.

Possibly she’s already guessed; they’re both still alive, both willing to be in the same room as each other, no doubt that speaks volumes. Possibly she thinks Sandy will open up and talk about it when she’s ready. Possibly she just thinks it’s not her place, that this is a rare moment she shouldn’t be a part of. Whatever the reason, she keeps her thoughts to herself, staying close in companionable silence as Sandy eats her poor excuse for a breakfast and not saying a word until she’s done.

She speaks very carefully when she does finally break the silence, like a part of her is still afraid there’s something broken rattling around inside Sandy’s head or her body, afraid that the slightest slip might cause her to shatter all over again.

“It’s been a while,” she says, so tentative it’s almost painful. “How are you feeling?”

A good question. But not a simple one.

Sandy doesn’t answer for a while. Stares into her empty bowl, studying the cracks in the clay, the little imperfections skittering harmlessly across the surface. They make the bowl look older than it probably is, like it’s been dropped a handful of times, knocked around or thrown in a fit of rage, mistreated and abused and—

“Metaphorical,” she says, and hands it over to Tripitaka.

Tripitaka holds the bowl up to the light. Studies the damage, the cracks and scuffs, the places where the surface is chipped or split or broken, the places it will never again be whole.

“You don’t have to be a poet all the time,” she chides fondly. “But I get it.”

And she sets it to one side, abandoned and dismissed and already forgotten.

Sandy sighs, closing her eyes; despite the good night’s sleep, her temples are throbbing with tiredness. “Do you?” she asks.

It’s not the question she wants to ask, but it’s enough. When she opens her eyes again, Tripitaka is watching her with a sad smile. “As well as anyone can, I guess.”

That’s something, Sandy supposes. Maybe not enough, but something.

“It’s hard,” she says. “And I know... I know it was never going to get suddenly easier just because my mind was whole again, but I thought... I _hoped_... my thoughts would start to make a little more sense. Thought I might be able to hold on to them more easily, understand them, understand myself. Hoped it would make me into something a little more...” She swallows, a convulsion that rocks her body, sickened by the idea of saying ‘normal’. “A little more like what a god should be.”

Tripitaka shakes her head, kind but serious. “You _are_ what a god should be,” she says. “I’ve been telling you that since this started. There’s nothing wrong with the way you are.”

It doesn’t help. The way Tripitaka sees her, sees the world... it is unfathomable, and it does not help at all. Sandy wets her lips, reaches deep down inside herself, scrabbles in vain for the right words.

“To you, yes,” she says carefully. “And I know I... I mean, of course I’m still able to help you. To function, even. But it’s still so difficult. Engaging. Thinking. I still feel...”

 _Mad_ , she doesn’t say. She knows how Tripitaka will react to that word, how she always reacts to the idea that Sandy might not be perfectly whole or healthy or normal. She couldn’t even hear ‘broken’ without growing upset.

Not that it matters; even without saying the word, Tripitaka still hears it. Sandy wonders if she’s being especially unsubtle today, or if Tripitaka is simply learning to read her better. Either way, it’s a far cry from the North Water, from a Tripitaka who shouted her down and ignored her, who assumed that she was simply jealous of something that was never there, who didn’t know and didn’t want to know the first thing about her.

Now, here, she reads her like they’re still sharing thoughts, like she knows her so deeply and so intimately that Sandy doesn’t need to speak the words to make them heard.

“You’re not,” Tripitaka tells her; she doesn’t say the word either, Sandy notes. “You never were. Whatever they said about you, whatever you believed about yourself. It was never true.”

Sandy thinks on that. Doesn’t believe it, of course, or agree with it, but Tripitaka’s faith has always been an infectious thing. Not reassuring, exactly, but there is some solace in knowing that not every part of her is defined by this trauma she didn’t remember; some parts, she has been carrying much, much longer.

“I suppose I’ll never know,” she muses aloud. “How much of me came out of that, and how much is just... myself. The way I was forced to live, the voices in my head. The way I am. Maybe the way I was always doomed to be, one way or another.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tripitaka says. “I’ve been trying to tell you that from the very beginning. We could spend a lifetime trying to pick apart why we think or feel or behave the way we do, but what good would it do in the end? It doesn’t matter what we are or what we’re made. What matters is how we go forward. Not how we’re defined by the world, but how we choose to define ourselves.”

Sandy chuckles. “Not so easily done,” she says. “Going forward. Defining myself. I’m only just starting to learn what the word means.”

“Nothing worth having is easy,” Tripitaka tells her, with quiet passion. “I didn’t mean to suggest it was. I just mean, try not to overthink everything. Getting all tangled up in your thoughts and your feelings, the ‘why’ and ‘how’ and ‘which came first’, all of it. None of that stuff is important, okay? None of it.”

“Oh?” She tries to say it lightly, casually, and doesn’t really succeed; her voice cracks, taking with it all feints at levity, leaving her on the brink of tears. “Then what is?”

Tripitaka gazes up at her like she’s the sun, blinding and dazzling and life-giving.

“This,” she breathes.

And she leans in, slow and sweet, kisses her thoroughly, and lets that be all the answer they need.

*

It is a while before they separate.

A while before they break apart, yes, but a while before they move away from each other as well. Tripitaka seems hesitant to leave her side for any reason, and Sandy is just as reluctant to suggest it. She’s never really enjoyed tactile contact or physical closeness before — why would she, when the only people who ever touched her were trying to kill her? — and it is a strange, confusing thing to find herself yearning for it now. She feels sort of reborn, like her body is waking up for the first time, learning new things about itself in harmony with her mind.

It is a strange sensation. Being in someone’s arms, feeling warm and safe and loved, wanting those things to stay with her, wanting to lose herself in them, wanting—

 _Wanting_.

But eventually, inevitably, they separate. Have to, every now and then, as long as the world is still turning and carrying on without them. The cracked, empty bowl needs cleaning, and Tripitaka has never been the sort to leave a chore sitting around for too long. So, after a few minutes, she picks it up, turns it over in her hands, then kisses Sandy on the corner of the mouth and rises to her feet.

“I’ll be back soon,” she says, as if there was ever any doubt.

Sandy doesn’t try to stop her; she has a chore of her own to attend to.

The Shaman is still sitting with Monkey, on the far side of the room, keeping their distance from the rest of them. Hard to tell whether it’s a gesture of politeness, respect for Sandy and Tripitaka’s privacy, or whether they just wanted some of their own. Either way, she appreciates the gesture... right up to the point where she has to walk over to them and interrupt; then all of a sudden she’s nervous.

Monkey is characteristically evasive when she approaches, greeting her with a cheery wave and swiftly turning the attention onto her before she has the chance to ask about his choice of companionship.

“You good?” he asks, before she can even get a word out. “You look... uh...” He clears his throat, no doubt realising there’s nothing polite he can possibly say. “I guess it’s a work in progress, huh?”

“Indeed,” the Shaman says. There is a faint glimmer of fondness in his voice now, so subtle that it could easily be mistaken for something rather less flattering. “She is alive, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. How she appears is entirely irrelevant.”

Monkey snorts. “You would say that. Looking the way _you_ do.”

The Shaman, somewhat predictably, pretends he didn’t hear that. Sandy smothers a smile; it must be hard for Monkey, she muses, engaging with someone so determined to ignore his taunts.

Blocking him out completely, the Shaman instead turns his focus to Sandy. “I assume you’re here because you want something?” he presses. “From my observations, you are less inclined to needless and foolish small-talk than certain others in your little band.”

“If you mean me,” Monkey, gripes, “there’s nothing ‘small’ or ‘little’ in my—”

“Monkey.” Sandy coughs, flushing uncomfortably. “Would you mind helping Tripitaka with the breakfast things? I’d like to speak with the Shaman alone.”

He quirks a brow, slightly irritated at being asked to move — or possibly just at being asked to do chores — but he’s wise enough not to voice his disapproval out loud. He must really have been worried about her these past few days, she thinks, that he’s willing to stand and leave without a word. Usually, he’d be planting his feet and insisting that they be the ones to move instead.

Not today. He saunters off without consequence, pausing only to nudge her shoulder and murmur a handful of off-colour threats at the Shaman. “Just because you put her brains back together doesn’t mean you get to turn on us again. She’d better still be in one piece when I get back.”

“I assure you,” the Shaman deadpans, “I have no intention of undoing my own hard work and exhaustion simply to be petty. That, as far I understand it, would be rather more _your_ style.”

Sandy drops her head into her hands and keeps it there until she’s sure Monkey’s gone and they’re alone.

The Shaman is leaning back in his chair, studying her with narrowed eyes. Curious, she can tell, but cautious as well; he knows her well enough to know that she would not disturb him for nothing.

“What did you wish of me?” he asks, after a quiet moment. “Your mind is clear. Your thoughts... still wayward, yes, but in a manner that makes some measure of sense, given your recent ordeal. If you have fears in need of quelling, I can...”

“No.” Her throat constricts suddenly; she doesn’t know why she’s suddenly so nervous. “Nothing like that. I... I am as well as I can hope for, I think. And the places where I’m not, I don’t think even your powers would be able to help. I don’t... it’s nothing I need. And you’ve done so much for me already, if you don’t want to exhaust yourself for me any more, I completely understand.”

His lips twitch, irritation flooding his face as he figures it out. “I see. You’re here to request a...” He wrinkles his nose. “...a _favour_.”

Sandy flushes, only about half as ashamed as she probably should be.

“Yes. That is, um, if you’re agreeable.” She swallows, catches her breath, then adds in a hasty rush, “Not for me, though. For Tripitaka.”

“The monk.” A little less annoyed now, he’s starting to look amused. “Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time. Between the two of you, your petty, juvenile emotions were a seething cauldron waiting for the right moment to overflow.” He rolls his eyes, a little bit derisive but not with any real spite. “Very well, then: proceed with your request. What grand romantic gesture could possibly necessity a demon’s assistance?”

Sandy bristles a little at his choice of words. “Not... romantic,” she mutters. “But we... that is, she... that is...”

She sighs; this is much more difficult in practice than it seemed when she was planning it out inside her head. Not really surprising, but it is rather annoying.

The Shaman, showing remarkable patience, leans back a little and says, “Take your time.”

Sandy nods, catches her breath, tries again.

“A couple of days ago," she starts, floundering. “That is, when we saw the Scholar in Monica’s memories, she... he raised her, you know, as a father. And she was curious about...” She closes her eyes, breathes, presses on. “I spent some time with him. Later in my life. When I was... more conscious of myself. Moments I remember, have always remembered. And I thought she might like... I mean, I know she would, she said so... to see him that way. Like a real Scholar, a leader. The way he was when she knew him. So I was hoping... that is, I thought...”

Awkward. Terribly clumsy, but it gets the message across, more or less. The Shaman frowns at her for a beat or two, taking it in, and then his whole face grows dark as a stormcloud.

“You ‘thought’.” Lightning seems to flash behind his eyes, irritation sparking closer to rage. “Frankly, I’m seeing rather a dearth of _thinking_ on your part.”

“I... what?”

He sighs, but does not soften. “What you ask is... reckless. Foolish and ignorant and utterly selfish. To say nothing of the lack of respect. After everything I’ve done, the toll it’s taken, still you would demand more?”

“I wasn’t... that is, it wasn’t my intent to be disrespectful or unappreciative.” Still, though, she hangs her head; this isn’t at all how she imagined this conversation would go. “I know it’s not a small task, walking in people’s memories. I know it’s a strain on your powers, and a strain on you personally, and I know you’ve pushed yourself further than anyone could reasonably expect of you. I know all that, I do, and I’m so grateful—”

“Are you? Truly?”

“Yes.” She swallows, biting down on the urge to back down. “But every memory we’ve endured has been so painful. For me, and for her as well. Maybe for you, I don’t know. I just... I just want to share a positive one.”

“I have seen very little in your mind that could be described as ‘positive’,” he says, bland and cold and probably talking about more than just her memories. “Certainly not from the time before your precious monk appeared.”

“He taught me,” she says in an urgent, frantic whisper. “The Scholar, that is. Before I knew that I’d learned it all before, that we’d learned it all together. He taught me about myself, about the gods, what it means to be one, and I learned from him, and I felt—”

“I know what you felt.” Still cold, but if she peers at him sideways and sort of squints a bit, she thinks he might be softening. “I have walked your memories, as you well know. I am familiar with them. And to be blunt, I have no intention of returning there now that I no longer need to.”

She lets her face fall, turns her gaze to the ground. Tries to look sad and not just sullen. “I understand,” she says, as pitiful as she can muster. “It was an indulgent thing to ask.”

“Indeed. To say nothing of selfish. And arrogant. And disrespectful.” She doesn’t look up, but she can hear the sharpness in his tone, just as she can hear it starting to wear itself out. “I have taken no pleasure in putting your memories and your mind back together. You have seen the toll it’s taken on me. To demand more from me now... and for no purpose other than to indulge a _whim_ , a romantic, idealistic _notion_...”

Sandy opens her mouth to protest, but finds she has nothing to say. She closes it again with a sigh, and says, “Sorry.”

“Do not apologise,” he snaps. She looks up to find him glowering again, heated but not really angry; it’s an odd look, and not entirely unfamiliar. “Setting aside the thoughtlessness of your request, I suppose I can understand your desire to end this ordeal on a more uplifting note. For your monk, and for yourself as well. What you endured here was... extreme.”

His expression shifts as he speaks, the hardness growing a little blurry at the edges, the scowl growing dim. It doesn’t look like any kind of softness Sandy is familiar with, but that is so often true of demons. And humans, come to that. There is still so much she doesn’t yet understand about social interaction, expressing thoughts and emotions. If she were less razed inside, she might take notes.

“I’m sorry,” she says again; she knows he told her not to, but she doesn’t know what else to say. “You’re right: I should never have asked. You can pretend I never did, and...”

He holds up a hand, silencing her as effectively as if he’d pressed his fingers to her temples again and stolen her voice and her control.

For a long moment, he doesn’t speak either. Simply studies her, features hard but eyes soft, like he’s trying to pierce her mind again, trying to seek out the places she wants to expose. Perhaps he is; if this experience has taught her anything, it’s that there are very few limits to his psychic powers, and fewer still to his willingness to invade her privacy without permission.

Whatever he’s doing — whether he’s studying her on a deeper level or simply glaring at her face until it reveals what he wants the old-fashioned way — he doesn’t look particularly drained when he’s done. Not like when he goes into her mind, at least, when the wear seems almost greater on him than it was on her. He looks contemplative, and softer by the moment.

“Very well,” he says, throwing up his hands at long last. “If it will make you and the monk happy, and if you promise to finally release me from your absurd company when it’s done...” He rolls his eyes, and Sandy has to fight to keep from giggling; sometimes, he can be as dramatic as Monkey. “I will allow _one_ more journey.”

Sandy’s knees start to buckle, the relief hitting her like a wall of hot air. She swallows hard, locking them underneath her, and lets the emotion bleed out into a smile. 

“Thank you,” she whispers. “You can’t know how much this—”

“ _One_ ,” he says again, a little sharp now. “I would advise you to choose your moment wisely, but I think we have established that wisdom is far beyond your realm of expertise. So I will simply ask that you choose _quickly_ , and let us finally be done.”

Sandy is fairly certain she’s being insulted.

She also doesn’t care.

“I will,” she promises, trying not to smile too wide.

He rolls his eyes, letting her see just how little faith he holds in her reassurances. “See that you do,” he says, a growl with no bite.

And as he waves a hand and disappears — storming out, in his own special way — Sandy closes her eyes and finally lets her legs go out from under her.

*

Blessedly, telling Tripitaka is much easier and rather more rewarding.

She returns a little while later, wiping her hands on her robes and talking with Monkey. He’s considerably less chipper now, annoyed at having been cornered into actually doing some manual labour for once, and he passes Sandy without a word on his way to the bed, no doubt to vent some of his new-found moodiness on Pigsy and Locke.

She doesn’t try to stop him. Turns away as he walks off, tries to block out his shoulders and the shadow of the bed, still so large and looming; she’s not sure she’d trust herself to get a sentence out if she had to look at it.

“Hey.” Tripitaka settles down next to her. It’s familiar now, comfortable; she doesn’t ask, doesn’t wait for permission, just settles in and throws an arm around Sandy’s waist like she can’t remember a time when it didn’t belong there. “You holding up okay? Mind and memories still working properly? No headaches?”

“Your concern is touching,” Sandy says, hoping she sounds deadpan and not just ungrateful. “You were gone for a few minutes. Shockingly, I was able to survive such a lengthy separation.”

Tripitaka cuffs her lightly for that, then her eyes darken.

“You sure?” She’s trying a little too hard not to frown; it makes her look dazed and punch-drunk. “Monkey said you were talking to the Shaman. Said you had something to say to him in private.”

Sandy scowls. “Monkey says far too much for a god with such a small staff.” Tripitaka’s whole demeanour grows soft as she laughs, and that shakes away the last of Sandy’s nervousness. “I wanted to talk to him about you. About...” She coughs, self-conscious, but does not allow her courage to falter again. “I don’t know if you still... I mean, I’m not sure if it’s something you’d still like to... uh...”

But of course the words abandon her, just as they always do.

Tripitaka is blinking at her, comically confused. “I’m sorry,” she says, looking like she really means it, like she truly is sorry for failing to fathom Sandy’s nonsense. “What are you talking about?”

Sandy closes her eyes, counts to ten a couple of times, then tries again. 

“You wanted to see the Scholar.” She says it as slowly as she can, for her own sake rather more than Tripitaka’s. “When he was a mentor to me, not a young peer. When he was closer to the Scholar you knew. You said... uh, you asked if we could, after this was all over...”

The confusion falls off Tripitaka’s face, replaced by something a little like shock. “You actually remembered that?”

“Of course. It seemed terribly important to you. I wanted...”

Trails off, horrified, to see tears filling Tripitaka’s dark eyes.

“Sandy.” Tears in her voice, too, thick and clogging. “You’ve spent great chunks of the last few days unable to even remember your own name. How could you possibly have remembered _that_?”

Sandy ducks her head, embarrassed but also a little relieved that the tears aren’t angry ones. “As I said,” she mumbles shyly. “It seemed important to you.”

“I...” Tripitaka’s breath trembles; it makes the air feel fluid. “Thank you.”

Sandy nods, mostly as an excuse to keep her head down. “We don’t have to, if you don’t want to any more. But I asked the Shaman, and he agreed to indulge one last memory. Hopefully a more positive one. So if you’d like to... that is, if you still want to see a moment from that time in his... my... in _our_ lives...” She gestures vaguely, blushing. “He said it was okay.”

When she dares to look up, she finds Tripitaka still dark-eyed and tearful, still staring at her. She doesn’t really know how to feel about it, what to make of her strange expression. Not scrutiny, not worry, none of the tight, deep feelings she’s become accustomed to seeing in her face — in all their faces — since this began; she’s not waiting to see if Sandy will break from speaking so much, not trying to make sense of what she’s saying or doing or feeling, not trying to gauge how dangerous she is or how frightened or how much herself, how much help she might need to keep her head above water.

None of those things at all. Nothing bad, nothing tentative, nothing wrong. For perhaps the first time since they met, Tripitaka is looking at her like she’s done something wonderful.

Sandy doesn’t really understand that. Tripitaka doesn’t seem to be in any state to explain, though, and so she tries again, even slower than before. “Did I... sometimes I misinterpret...”

“No.” It takes a visible effort for her to find her voice again; her arm, still around Sandy’s waist, locks tight, holding her like she’s precious and perfect. “No, you got it right. I just... I can’t believe you remembered. With everything you had to deal with, and you could barely hold your own thoughts together, I can’t believe my grief even... I can’t believe you’d...”

“Always,” Sandy says fiercely. “When it’s you, always.”

Tripitaka pulls her in, hugs her until they’re both breathless.

“You are...” she whispers against her neck, then shakes her head like she’s having a seizure, seemingly unable to finish.

Sandy understands. Even if she didn’t, it wouldn’t matter; it’s rather refreshing, not being the one who can’t find her voice for once.

She holds Tripitaka just as hard, just as close, as tight, as complete. Lets her breath catch the same frantic rhythm. Emotion, and all its strange and messy shades, all the things she doesn’t understand, never had any reason to understand before now, before this, before hurt and healing and _her_.

“Is that...” She swallows, overwhelmed. “Is that a ‘yes’?”

Tripitaka draws back. Swats her arm with a shaky, beautiful laugh.

“Yeah,” she says, soft and reverent. “Yeah, it’s a ‘yes’.”

*

And so it is.

At the Shaman’s suggestion, they go back to Sandy’s home in the sewers. An odd choice, she thinks, but he insists it’s where she’s most connected to herself, that that’s somehow important if they’re going to do this properly.

Sandy doesn’t argue, though she’s not sure the version of herself who feels connected to this place is any version she wants Tripitaka to see. Still, the Shaman has not steered her wrong yet; why would he suddenly start now?

Besides, feeling as she does, nervous and a little unsteady, she’ll need all the connection she can get. Never done it before, wandering her own memories when they’re whole and wholly hers, venturing inside her own head with no fear of falling through the cracks and coming out lost or sick or even more broken. Never been trusted like this before, to be the one guiding them and seeing them safe, not to fix her broken pieces but to share them, to let others be a part of them, engage with them, experience them with her...

It is overwhelming, and more than a little frightening.

Hers is not a life she ever imagined someone else would want to see. Even before she remembered the worst of it, she remembered that much with ease. Remembered — and remembers again now — the thing she was: a wretched, feral creature, a wild animal befriended by a monk she believed was a stranger. She’s not sure she’d like to know what Tripitaka will think of her when it’s done, when she’s seen her like that, so violent and so monstrous.

She tries to warn her as they settle in. Tries to explain what survival means, in words that a sweet, sheltered, beautiful human might be able to understand.

“Tripitaka.” Urgent, fearful; the hitch of her voice probably doesn’t help her case. “You should know, I... back then, when he found me, I was nothing like the person I am now. And nothing like _her_ , either. That young girl, the one who got hurt. She was innocent, untainted. And I am reborn with you. But I... the thing I was between... the thing you’re about to see...”

Tripitaka shakes her head, silences her before she can continue with a thumb pressed to her mouth. “Sandy.” She smiles, and it’s almost — _almost_ — enough to chase away her fears. “When we first met, you knocked me unconscious and then put your scythe to my throat, for no reason at all. I think I know the sort of person I’m going to be seeing.”

“I don’t think you do,” Sandy says, as quietly as she dares. “When he first... when he _second_...” She blows out a frustrated, impatient breath. “When we met... when I thought we met for the first time, I was... Tripitaka, I was an _animal_. Please, try to understand.”

She doesn’t. It’s obvious from the look on her face, the warmth and the tenderness, the unspoken belief that she could never see such things in the god she’s come to care about so deeply. Doesn’t understand, maybe can’t or maybe just doesn’t want to, but she holds Sandy’s hands and looks her in the eye and she goes through all the motions of pretending she really does, pretending she _can_. For Sandy’s sake, so that she can close her eyes and pretend too, that she believes it.

“I know you, Sandy,” Tripitaka whispers. “And I understand everything I need to.”

As she lies down, clinging to her hand like it’s the only thing keeping her alive, Sandy prays with everything she has that it will prove true.

**

_He followed her home._

_Down into the belly of the town, where no humans ever dared go. Into the dark and the dank, the cold, wet sewers. Into the underground where lurking, dangerous things built their beds out of bones, where no-one would ever hear it if he screamed and gurgled and died._

_He had to know what he was doing, coming down here. Had to know he was risking his life and his organs, backing one of those lurking things in a corner, had to know what dangerous creatures did to the people who cornered them._

_Yet still he followed her._

_Undetected, for a time. That was impressive, and worrying. She was good at hearing things, good at sensing shifts in the shadows, at catching the cracks in the air. It had been a long time since someone had managed to sneak up on her, and it had never, ever happened in her own home._

_He picked a good moment, though, this one. She was distracted, preoccupied. More important things to worry about, more dangerous things than a wayward human with a death wish._

_Thorn in her side. Sharp, curved, hungry._

_Not a literal thorn, not the kind that grew; a knife, jagged and serrated and mostly blunt, but it stuck in her side as well as one. Hurt, heavy pain pulsing in rhythm with the blood, but she knew it wouldn’t stick. Not the pain, not the blood. None of it. Would mend soon, fast. She’d learned this many times by now. It was the only reason she let the humans live when they came after her: because she knew it would never stick._

_Weak, useless things, humans. Could only hurt her briefly, fleetingly. Little thorns stuck in her skin, mended fast, but she could kill them with a look. She didn’t know much about the world, but she knew that wasn’t fair._

_So she let them bleed her a little, hurt her or maybe just believe they’d hurt her. Watched, snarling and full of hurt, as their ignorance and stupidity, fear of the crazy sewer demon, blinded them again and again to the truth: that she wasn’t, that she never was, that they were always wrong and had always been wrong, always, always, always, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong..._

_She tried to help, sometimes. Suffered for it, always._

_But she was used to suffering. Didn’t know how else to live her life, didn’t know it was possible to live and breathe and not suffer as well._

_Didn’t matter. At least she was doing something; that was what mattered. Stupid, futile, pointless — kill one demon, another ten would appear out of nowhere; save one human, another ten would try to kill her instead — but something, always something._

_Kept her from losing too much of her mind, too much of herself. So easy to lose things, down here in the dark all alone. So she did things, stupid things, pointless things, to remind herself what people looked like, even if she couldn’t tell the good ones from the bad. Helped her to hold on to the part of her that once believed it was one of them._

_The humans did more to hurt her than the demons ever could. Backwards, yes, but it made sense: unafraid as she was of killing demons, they were dead before they could start. But every time she tried to hurt a human, something stopped her. Knowing, perhaps, that they were driven by fear and not malice. Somewhere in the dark, messy recesses of her mind she knew that this was important._

_Didn’t know how she knew, or why. Didn’t much care either. It was what it was: Go out, get hurt, come home, lick her wounds, go out, get hurt..._

_Repeat. Again and again and again. Life, hers, the only one she had._

_She didn’t feel a thing when she yanked the knife out. Useless thing, dull and coated with rust; the only gleam came from her blood, sticky and wet, as useless as the blade. Unpleasant, blood, every time. It stained everything, got everywhere, and when she looked down she could taste it in her mouth. Rancid, foul, thick on her tongue. It used to make her sick; now it just made her angry._

_She snarled, frustrated with herself for letting it happen, letting a human get close enough to stick it in her, and reared back to throw the knife into a corner. Unworthy. Let it be forgotten along with the human who once wielded it, who thought a blade could hurt a god, who thought anything could—_

_Stopped, frozen, at the sight of dark robes and long, flowing hair._

_Human._

_In her home._

_She tasted blood again. Thicker, heavier. His, soon enough._

_Hard to tell much about him from sight. Humans were confusing things, and they never wore the same look twice. But his robes said he was a monk and the marks on his face suggested he was of middling age at least, or perhaps a younger man who had lived a difficult life. One or the other; Sandy didn’t much care, and she didn’t bother to look any deeper. Didn’t matter. He would be dead before she cared to learn more about him._

_Motionless. Hands spread in front of him. No weapon. Staring at her like he’d seen a ghost. Not the usual way humans looked at her; they all knew what a demon looked like by now, and a few of them knew what she looked like specifically. Anger and fear, these she knew, recognised, understood. But him..._

_Strange expression. Haunted. Maybe sad? Hard to know; she couldn’t remember what sadness tasted like._

_Salt, maybe? A bitter sting to wash down the tang of blood. She couldn’t remember. But he..._

_He looked at her like he could taste both. Thick blood, heavy, hungry. Tears, all salt-wet and sticky. She didn’t know what to make of him. Didn’t want to make anything._

_“I heard...” he whispered, rambling to himself like a creature gone half-mad. “I heard, and I knew it had to be you. Who else could have... who else but...”_

_He shook himself into silence, stared at her with open eyes and open hands._

_Sandy gripped the knife a little bit tighter. Rusted, worthless, couldn’t hurt anyone. It would find a new home between his ribs, and then she’d never have to think of either of them again._

_“Leave.”_

_Her voice, as rusty as the blade, struggled to make it past the veins and tendons in her throat. Too long since she’d had a reason to talk with anyone, to speak instead of simply slaying._

_His eyes narrowed in the dark, a puzzled frown. “I’m not armed.”_

_“Leave!” Better a second time. The rust in her voice sharpened the word into a threat, a danger as sharp as she was. “Don’t know how you got here. Don’t care. Leave now, or die.”_

_“That wound looks deep.” Voice low. Soft. Gentle, maybe? It made Sandy’s head spin, made her feel dizzy and terribly unsafe. “I followed you to see if you needed help. I’m not the most talented healer, but I can—”_

_“No.” The flow of blood was already slowing; the pain, still present for now, would follow soon enough. “Been stabbed many times before. Humans, demons, both. Learned enough to know when it’s bad and when it’s not.”_

_“I’m sorry to hear that.”_

_His sincerity meant nothing to her. “Not bad,” she said, emphatic. “It’ll mend by itself. Don’t need help from your kind. Would never accept it, even if I did.”_

_He quirked a brow. “You’re very articulate.”_

_“For a demon, you mean? For a monster?”_

_“For someone who has clearly spent so much of their life alone.” He studied her for a moment, eyes narrowing in the dark. Then, tentatively, “Do you know who I am?”_

_She peered at him through the dark. Growled. Hissed._

_“Human. Monk. Idiot, to come down here alone.” Teeth bared, the knife shaking just slightly in her hand. “Don’t need to know anything else to know that you’re not welcome here.”_

_“I see. That’s... unfortunate.”_

_He looked deeply sad all of a sudden, like ‘unfortunate’ was an understatement, like she’d broken his stupid little heart by not welcoming him with open arms._

_No matter; she had no interest in appeasing his kind. Humans with their sharp words and their blunt blades. Monsters, all of them, as horrible as any demon, far worse than the things they called her. She would not have one in her home, would not have one anywhere near her. She would rip out his lungs, his throat, his heart—_

_“Leave.” Her voice shook too, like the knife. “Or I will kill you. Gut you. Rip out your insides. Don’t think I won’t.”_

_“I know you won’t.” Smiling. So sure, so secure. A foolish mistake. “You don’t harm humans. If you did, the two who came at you earlier would both be dead by now. Instead they’re safe and warm in their homes and you’re down here.”_

_She hissed again, sharper. “I am home too. Here: my home. You: uninvited, unwanted, unwelcome. If you will not leave by choice, I will expel you by force.”_

_Silence for a long moment. He didn’t leave, but he didn’t try to approach her either. Still, she tightened her grip on the knife, just in case. Humans did many things without provocation, and they could be surprisingly quick when they chose to attack._

_Finally, carefully, he held out a hand, palm facing upwards, and said, “Sandy.”_

_She froze. Spine stiff. Insides turned to ice._

_And then, instinct._

_Reflex._

_The rush of moisture and mist through her veins, her bones turned to water, speed and motion and power. She surged like a river, like an ocean, and then he was on his back and she was kneeling over him, snarling and growling, the knife pressed to his neck, rusty and dangerous and ready to strike._

_“How do you know my name?”_

_Didn’t add the part where she barely even knew it herself._

_Her name, yes. She was sure, but sometimes she wasn’t._

_An echo of an echo, some intangible fragment of a thing lurking in the corners of her mind. Not the name her parents gave her, but the name that was hers just the same. She knew this, most of the time, with a certainty that frightened her, but like so many other things she didn’t know why or how, and some days she forgot it entirely. Must have chosen it for herself at some point. Might have been very young, maybe delirious, but it was hers. She knew it. Her name, who she was._

_And he knew it too._

_She snarled. Tightened her grip. Tried to block out the instincts in the back of her head, little voices telling her not to kill humans, not to kill mortals, not to hurt—_

_“I’m a friend.” Eyes wide, fear draining all the colour from his face, still he spoke with softness. “Believe what you will about my kind, but know that this is true.”_

_Lies, of course. Stupid, clumsy lies, an attempt to save his life. Humans weren’t friends to her, a god living like a demon, forced into hiding so long ago she no longer remembered why. Knew only that there wasn’t a living soul, human or demon, who would seek her out by choice with any purpose other than to kill or harm._

_She pressed down with the edge of the knife, willing herself to draw blood. Just a drop, just a bead, just a little. Just enough to prove she was serious. A little, just a little, just..._

_But no blood came. Maybe the knife was too blunt._

_“Explain.” A snarl, to cover up the weakness. “Now!”_

_He swallowed; she could feel the convulsion against the edge of the blade. Conflict on his face, hope mingled with grief, with confusion. The look of a man who didn’t know whether to speak the truth or hide behind more life-saving lies._

_“I’ve known you for some time,” he said at last, voice slightly strained by her weight on top of him. When she growled again and pressed down even harder, he coughed and tried again. “That is, people talk about you. A demon who kills other demons. It sounded... suspicious. So I decided—”_

_“Decided to track me down. Stalk me, hunt me, make me your prey. Invade my home.” She bared her teeth, ran the edge of the knife up the side of his throat, to his jaw. “Last mistake you’ll ever make.”_

_“No!” The urgency startled her; unwittingly, her grip loosened. “No, of course not. My order forbids me from laying a hand on another living soul, whatever you are. But I had to see if you were... if you...”_

_Stopped again, stammering and sorrowful._

_Sandy growled. The dull ache in her side was distracting, the slowing pulse of blood uncomfortable and messy, and she was growing increasingly frustrated with his lies._

_“Finish. Or die slowly and in terrible pain.”_

_He looked up at her for a long time, intense and thoughtful, like he was trying to find some deep, dark secrets buried under the lines on her face. Nothing there but frustration and danger, though, a thousand murders in her eyes, shades of shadow and violence spelling out all the dreadful things she would do to him if he didn’t start talking._

_And so, unwilling as humans so often were to face his own death, he did as he was told._

_“I know you’re not a demon,” he said, very carefully, like he was struggling to find the right words. “I know you’re a god. I know you’re incredibly powerful and incredibly dangerous. I know that you could kill me, even without that knife, and I know that you won’t.”_

_Sandy did not like the sound of that. A human thinking he could decide what she could and couldn’t do. She tried to tighten her grip, to squeeze the knife hard enough that it would have to draw blood, but her hand was shaking too much now. Angry, she threw the knife into the corner, hating herself for her inability, the ache in her side distracting her, making it hard to concentrate._

_He smiled when she climbed off him. Stood up smoothly, and dusted down his robes like he was not in a sewer, in the presence of a monster, watching his life flash before his eyes._

_“Thank you,” he said, with a grace she did not want. “You can call me the Scholar.”_

_Sandy had no intention of calling him anything. She just wanted him gone, just wanted to tend to her wounds in peace, just wanted to find the strength to slaughter him like he deserved._

_“Leave.” Held less power, she supposed, without the knife to back it up. “Now.”_

_“Sandy,” he said again, gently, and just like before her entire body seemed to freeze, paralysed by the word, the name, the way it sounded on his hateful human tongue. “How much do you know about what you are? How much do you...” His voice cracked, as though with a terrible sorrow. “How much do you remember?”_

_She glared. Didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to answer his questions, didn’t want to tell him anything—_

_But her voice, acting all on its own, had other thoughts. It rose up into her mouth without her permission, spilling all of her secrets uninvited._

_“Powerful,” it said, low and cold. “Dangerous. Hear voices sometimes, things in the water. Friendly, much nicer than the creatures up there in the village. Demons: monsters. Humans: worse ones.” Her throat felt strangely dry, clenching and tightening as she fought to lock it down, to keep it from sharing any more. But it would not be stopped, could not be silenced. “Don’t like humans. They think I’m one of them. A demon. Always have, ever since...”_

_Finally, she found her control again. Cut off the flow of words, of truths, of things he hadn’t earned the right to hear or learn or know or—_

_“I understand,” he whispered. “It’s wrong of them to see you like that.”_

_“Yes. Especially when I save them. Kill demons. Have to. I don’t...” Her head throbbed, dull and suddenly queasy; she gripped it in her hands and waited for it to stop. “Don’t know why, but I do. Feel it in my blood, my bones. Have to kill them, have to fight them, have to...”_

_When her mind and her vision refocused, she found the Scholar looking upset. “You don’t remember why?” he asked. “Don’t remember anything about what it means to be a god?”_

_Sandy didn’t appreciate the way he said that. Like it was her fault she didn’t know anything about what she was. Like she’d ever had anybody who could have explained such things. Like she hadn’t been by herself for as long as she could remember, alone in the dark, no company except the voices in the water, creatures that might or might not be real._

_“Nothing to remember,” she snapped, annoyed. “Been alone forever. No-one to learn from. Can’t teach myself. Doesn’t matter anyway, survived well enough. Now go away.”_

_She scrambled to the darkest corner, picked up the knife again and held it in front of her. Another threat, this one with no words to back it up; they both knew she wouldn’t follow through with it, both knew she couldn’t kill him, but it felt important somehow that she hold the thing, that she could at least pretend she was the one holding the power in this place that was supposed to be her home._

_He didn’t try to stop her. Not that he could have. Just stood there watching her with heartache on his face, not crying, but looking like a part of him wanted to. She didn’t understand, and she didn’t really care to._

_After a long moment spent staring at her face, seemingly oblivious to the weapon in her hand, he whispered, “I could teach you.”_

_Sandy laughed. It had been so long since she’d last done it, her throat almost ripped itself apart trying to get the sound out._

_“Why would I want you to?” she asked. “Survived just fine by myself. Know enough to do that.”_

_“But don’t you want to know more?” he pressed, with a strange sort of urgency. “To understand? To learn?”_

_He was looking at her like he expected her to want all of those worthless silly human things. Like they would do her any good living in a sewer all alone. Like she’d ever needed them before, like she ever would._

_“No,” she muttered. “Don’t care about knowing or learning. Why would I?”_

_Her indifference seemed to strike him like something physical, something tragic and deeply, terrible personal._

_“You did once.”_

_He spoke as if he knew this from experience somehow, as if he knew her more deeply than he should, more deeply than anyone. Impossible, of course, and ridiculous; it was just like that breed of human, she thought, to think they knew everything, to think themselves kings among gods. How would he knew what she cared about, what she wanted, what she believed? He was a human monk, a pointless, pathetic human monk. He was nothing, and he knew even less._

_“Perhaps I did,” she said, hard and angry. “When I was a child. All children like learning things. I think I remember that.” It tugged at a place inside her, a horrible place, throbbing pain so much worse than the dull ache in her side. “But as you can see, I am no longer a child.”_

_He opened his mouth, then closed it. Hard to know for sure in the dim half-light of the sewer, but he looked like he was crying._

_“I can see that,” he said, and his voice broke and she thought maybe his heart did too; she didn’t know why she thought that. “I’m sorry for disturbing you.”_

_And he turned around, and finally, blessedly left her alone._

*

_She thought that was the last she would see of him._

_It was not._

_The next time he came, a couple of days later, he brought her some food._

_Rice. Cold and sticky, probably left out for several days._

_She didn’t care._

_She ate like a wild animal, feral with hunger and weary of feasting on bones. Didn’t care that he was still there, that he was watching her, that his face had broken into a smile as she dove on the tiny bowl, that he seemed to take her starvation as an invitation to stay and watch._

_Didn’t care about anything. Only filling the holes in her belly._

_When she was done, her stomach heavy with fullness for the first time in as long as she could remember, she lifted her head to find him still watching her, still smiling, still there._

_“How long has it been since you had a good meal?” he asked, prodding carefully as she swallowed the last few bites. “What do you eat down here?”_

_Sandy grunted. Her stomach was starting to churn, unused to being so full, unused to having anything in it at all. Unpleasant. Still better than starvation._

_“Whatever I catch,” she muttered, breathing through her nose to chase the discomfort away. “Whatever doesn’t scream when I tear out its insides.”_

_She was no more amenable to companionship this time than she was the last, but he still didn’t seem inclined to leave her alone. Unfortunate for him; as soon as her stomach settled, she would finish what she could not the last time._

_“We could do something about that,” he said, cheerfully conversational. “I could talk to Mo— to the owner of the tavern, if you like? Ask her to put out some leftovers for you. She has a shrine, we could make it look innocuous. You need not starve.”_

_Stupid statement. Sandy hissed her derision._

_“Couldn’t starve. Not even if I ate nothing for a week. Done that many times, and I’m still here.” She slunk back to her corner, hugging her too-full belly. “Go away now. I don’t care if you brought me food. You were still uninvited.”_

_“I know. I thought a gesture of goodwill might...” He trailed off with a sigh, clearly seeing the error in his ways. “Sandy, I wish to help you. Truly and sincerely. There is so much you need to learn aga— so much you need to discover about yourself.”_

_“No.”_

_“If you’d only be willing to—”_

_“Said no.” Snarling again, as feral as she was when he arrived. “I know enough. Don’t need to know why I kill demons, just need to know where they are so I can do it. Don’t want the humans to thank me or know me or understand me, just want them to stay out of my way.” She peered out from the shadows, head cocked in a wordless threat. “You are not staying out of my way.”_

_“A fair point.” He sighed. “Sandy, you are needed. You have always been needed. You can’t hide from your destiny.”_

_She sat up a little straighter. One hand still pressed to her stomach, the other to the ground, she hissed, “I have no destiny.”_

_“You’re a god. You know this, at least, even if you can’t... even if the rest is gone. You have your instincts, you have your gift, your powers. The world needs gods like you to protect it.”_

_“The world hates me,” Sandy pointed out flatly. “And I don’t like it very much either.”_

_“You have every right to feel that way. The world has...” Another sigh, this one heavier, and his eyes seemed to burn for a moment as though with some dreadful memory. “The world has not been kind to you. Your anger is justified. But there is a chance for you to do more, to become better than what the world has tried to make you.”_

_The words scratched at her, like poisonous plants against her skin. “Why should I?”_

_He looked at her like that was the stupidest question he’d ever heard. It did not make her dislike him any less._

_“Surely you don’t want to live the rest of your life like this?” he asked slowly. “Alone and starving, not just physically but also spiritually. You have so much potential, Sandy, and you could do so much good.”_

_Sandy spared a moment’s thought for the world above, the world he spoke of with such warmth and affection; it had shown neither of those things to her, in all the years she could remember. At least the world below the surface kept her safe. Violent only when she chose to be, and never so bright, never so loud, never so full; it warmed her and welcomed her, the darkness and the endless, rushing water._

_“Don’t want to do good,” she muttered at last. “Just want to be left alone.”_

_“Ah, of course.” His voice was a smile; he seemed to be struggling to keep it from touching his face. “And this is why you venture above ground to hunt demons? Because it feeds your desire to be alone?”_

_“No.” She glared, annoyed at the way he kept wheedling, poking at things she couldn’t explain and didn’t really understand. “Don’t know why I do that. Just know that I have to. Feel it in my bones. My blood.”_

_“Exactly.” He looked almost proud; she didn’t understand that either. “I can explain it to you. Why it’s in your nature, what it means, where those instincts came from. I can help you to understand yourself, to better hone your reflexes and your instincts. Perhaps even to suppress them entirely, if you really do wish to be left alone. You don’t have to be bound to what you are, ignorant and uncomprehending. You can learn, you can evolve. You can choose.”_

_Still hugging herself, she inched a short distance out of the shadows. Enough that he could catch the glint of half-light in her eyes, not enough that he could reach out and touch it._

_“How do you know all this?” she asked cautiously. “And why do you care?”_

_He looked thoughtful for a beat or two, as though weighing up how much he should tell her, how much he felt she ought to know and how much he felt she would be able to grasp. It seemed like quite the struggle._

_Sandy felt rather insulted by that; she may be isolated and lonely, but she was not completely stupid. She knew what he was telling her, even when he used annoying words or big ones or nonsense ones. She could hear all the stupid things he said; he didn’t need to treat her like some fragile little thing, like a child who knew nothing and lacked the sense to understand._

_Sandy hated it when people hid things from her. Usually they turned out to be dark deeds or sordid secrets, things she needed to destroy._

_Finally, carefully, he said, “I’m part of a resistance movement.” He let that sink in, watching her closely, like he halfway expected her to ask what that meant. Stubbornly, she did not, but he went on just the same, as if she had. “Our goal is to drive the demons out of the world, to protect the people and the few gods who still remain. It is my duty — one of them — to know and understand these things.”_

_Sandy did not like the sound of that. Any of it. Didn’t know very much about humans, but she knew enough to catch the hidden meanings behind the pretty words. Collections of people all together, working towards a goal of their own making. Those sorts of humans only ever wanted one thing._

_“You don’t want to help me,” she realised aloud. “You want to use me. Make a weapon out of me. Teach me the things you want me to know, leave out all the rest. Turn me into something pliant. Something you can use for your purposes. A god with powers you can manipulate to your own ends.”_

_“No! That’s not...” He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then sighed and spread his arms. “It’s true, yes, that we would want to make use of your abilities. Of course we would; they would be an invaluable asset to our cause. But we would never mislead or mistreat you, and we would never take anything you were unwilling to give freely. You’re a person, Sandy. A valuable one, most assuredly, and a great boon to our cause, should you wish to be a part of it. But a person nonetheless, and you will always be treated as one.”_

_“Your kind has never treated me as a person.” The words made her eyes sting, her stomach clench, made her feel terribly small all of a sudden, in a way that didn’t really make sense. “Not once. Not ever. Not since...”_

_But she had to stop, because trying to think that far back made her head ache._

_The Scholar looked like he had a headache too. When she looked at him again, he was clenching his jaw so tightly it was turning pale. Crying again, she was sure, even as he turned his face away so she wouldn’t see the tears as they fell._

_“Sandy,” he whispered, sounding utterly heartbroken. “I understand why you feel like that. Truly, I do. I’ve seen the life you’ve lived, and the scars it’s left you with. But if you’d only give me a chance, I can show you another way.”_

_Sandy shook her head._

_Didn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it._

_Couldn’t believe it._

_Didn’t want to be tricked into believing in something so unfathomable, so completely impossible that it could never be anything but a lie. She would not believe it, would not allow herself to believe, to think, to hope—_

_“No.” Teeth bared, the words a snarl, a growl, a threat. “Lies. I’d rather you kill me than try to use me for your purposes. I will not be used. I won’t be taken, I won’t be used, I won’t be...”_

_Stopped, cut off by a bolt of pain to her head. Terrible, blinding, it came out of nowhere and drove her to her knees. Made her fumble in the dirt for a weapon, a shard of glass or stone, something she could turn against him if he tried to use her weakness to his advantage._

_When he did._

_They always did._

_But when her vision cleared and the pain receded enough for her to raise her head and look for him, he hadn’t moved at all. Still standing there, still watching her, careful and cautious. No change in his expression at all. The same soft, haunted sorrow as always, a mask that seemed as much a part of him as the robes or the beads he wore._

_“I won’t be used,” she said again. “I’ll die first.”_

_“That won’t happen,” he told her. “This, I promise you. We would ask that you lend your gifts to our cause, if you deem it worthy. We would offer you a place with us, among us, as one of us. But if you choose to simply take what lessons we can teach and leave, we will not try to stop you. Our resistance values freedom above all other things. What hypocrites would we be to deny you yours?”_

_“Humans are worse than hypocrites,” Sandy said angrily. “Worse than demons sometimes, too. Why should I aid them?”_

_“You don’t have to,” he said quietly. “Your aid would be welcome and greatly appreciated, but it is not a requisite or a necessity. What I offer, I offer with open arms, and with no caveat. All I want is a chance to help you.”_

_Stupid word, ‘help’. Cruel, deceptive. Lies, lies, lies._

_Sandy didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear anything from him. Didn’t want—_

_She looked down at herself, and found her whole body wracked with shudders. And her voice, treacherous and traitorous as it always was, betrayed her again and started trembling too, tearing from her throat in a question she did not want to ask:_

_“Why?”_

_She looked up at him, trying in vain to hide the anger and pain, the devastating loneliness, all those things he saw in her, all those things her shaking, shivering body held so close, and she saw that he was trembling as well._

_“Because,” he said in a ragged, heartbroken whisper, “you deserve it.”_

**

She opens her eyes, and she is home.

Her sewer. Her sanctuary.

Her monk. Her—

No. Not hers. Never hers.

 _Tripitaka_ , who has never belonged to anyone but herself, who never will. Tripitaka, holding her so tightly that she can’t breathe, so tightly that she doesn’t want to, doesn’t want anything but the smell of monk’s robes, her warm embrace, the way their bodies catch a rhythm, shuddering in harmony with Tripitaka’s sobs.

It’s a long moment before Sandy pulls away, before she can compel her body to abandon the thing she wants to keep close forever. Vision blurred with a mirror of Tripitaka’s tear-streaked face, she finds she has to gulp down a couple of breaths before she trusts herself to try and speak.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is shaky, as weak and unsteady as the rest of her. She lifts her head a little, finds the Shaman watching from a respectful distance, and feels her face flood with heat and shame. “He said I should choose a good moment, a moment that mattered. But I didn’t... there were so many moments, and my mind is still so jumbled, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t...”

Trails off, hushed by the press of Tripitaka’s fingertips against her lips.

“Sandy...”

She shakes her head. Wets her lips and tries again. “I could only think of that one. The first one. I mean, the first one that I remembered, the one I thought was the first one. Didn’t know where else to go, what else to...”

Tripitaka chuckles, tearful and full of love. For both of them, Sandy thinks, the god she has in front of her and the Scholar, the father-figure she remembers so fondly.

“Sandy,” she says again. “It’s all right.”

“There were others,” Sandy goes on, shaking her head again. Frenetic, urgent. “Better ones. I should have... should have thought harder. Remembered better. Happier moments, after I learned how to trust him. After I knew he wouldn’t hurt me or betray me or abandon me. He taught me so many things, I should have...”

She trails off. This memory is clear, has always been clear even before this began. She remembers the madness rising with her isolation, very different from the madness of being broken, the certainty that shadows had shapes, that there was malice in everything, monsters lurking everywhere, nothing safe except the darkest corners. Remembers believing the worst of everyone and everything, remembers having no reason to think otherwise. Demons tried to kill her, humans tried to hurt her, even knowing it was futile; she’d never met one who didn’t.

And then he came. Talking to her like he knew her — he did, she knows now, and it suddenly makes so much more sense than she ever could have realised at the time — like he understood her, like he truly cared. And it was, at least she thought it was, the first time anyone had given her anything, spoke to her and didn’t strike her, offered her gifts without taking anything in return, wisdom and knowledge and—

Compassion. Kindness.

The greatest gifts of all.

She held them close for years and years, learned them and studied with more attentiveness than all the scrolls and tomes, more precious all the godly secrets in all the world.

“There was so much more,” she says again, soft and wretched. “He gave me so much, Tripitaka, so much. I should have showed you something better.”

Tripitaka shakes her head. Wordless for a moment, her voice swallowed by tears, she can only look at her, grief and love and a sorrowful sort of joy all washing over her face at once. So many different emotions, or so many shades of the same ones; Sandy can hardly follow them at all, much less understand where they come from. She’s still trying to wrap her mind around what Tripitaka told her back when they saw the Scholar in Monica’s mind: that not all sorrow is bitter, that it can be sweet as well.

Finally, with an obvious effort, Tripitaka finds her voice again.

“It was perfect,” she whispers, still hoarse and clogged with tears. “The way he spoke to you, his compassion, his willingness to help, to show you kindness, his patience...” She blinks rapidly, and Sandy is sure she’s about to start crying again. “That was the Scholar who raised me. He would have waited a hundred lifetimes if that was how long it took for you to feel safe with him. And, in his eyes, it would have been worth it.”

“Was worth it,” Sandy says, feeling a familiar sting starting behind her own eyes now. “For me, at least. For him, not so sure. I gave so little in return.”

Tripitaka chuckles. “It wouldn’t have mattered,” she says, with all the conviction of someone who knows this with every fibre of their being. “I know he felt the same way.”

Sandy doesn’t argue, but she doesn’t feel as comforted by the idea as she expects. Even if she did share Tripitaka’s certainty, which she doesn’t, she’s not sure it would bring her any solace.

The Scholar came to her out of nowhere. Followed her home, cornered her and showed her kindness, earned her trust with tiny little gestures and great complex ideas. Gave her food when she was starving, gave her warm blankets in winter. Gave her a journal and taught her how to fill it with words, how to let her wayward thoughts spill over into a place that wasn’t so mad or so dangerous. Gave her a weapon, too, when the trust between them bloomed, when he was sure she wouldn’t turn around and use it against him.

His trust was well founded, and so too was hers. She came to idolise him, the only human who ever treated her like a person, like someone whose life was as precious as his own.

She would have protected his with hers, if she’d been there that night, without a moment’s thought. If only she’d known that he was in danger, she would have done whatever it took to keep him alive, keep him safe.

But she didn’t know. And so she couldn’t help. Could only learn, days later, hiding in the shadows, that he was gone. Could only return home, more lonely than she’d felt in years and years, and cry until there was nothing left.

She turns back to Tripitaka now, overwhelmed by a sudden urgent need to hold her again, to keep her close and make her see just how important she is, how deeply the Scholar’s blood runs through her veins, even if they were never truly related.

Pressing her face to Tripitaka’s neck, she lets a few tears fall, private and silent.

“You said I was all you have left of him,” she whispers. “I think that’s true for me as well. You knew him and you loved him and you...” She feels Tripitaka’s body start to tremble, and feels her own start to follow. “You are so much like him.”

Tripitaka sobs against her, that beautiful grief-pain-love-joy that she tried so hard to explain before. And for the first time, Sandy thinks she might understand what it means to feel grief and joy at the same time, to feel something so painful and so beautiful as well.

It feels like a lifetime before she pulls away, before they pull away together. Sandy’s vision is swimming with tears, so much so that she can barely make out the streaks lining Tripitaka’s face. Grief and pain, yes, and joy and love, and so many other things she cannot begin to count them all.

Tripitaka gulps air, looks up at her with more love than Sandy has ever seen in anyone. She doesn’t kiss her, doesn’t touch her, doesn’t do anything at all, but this time she does not need to.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “For showing me.”

Sandy doesn’t know what to say. ‘You’re welcome’, probably; isn’t that the normal response to a ‘thank you’?

But all she can think of is the countless ways, big and small, that Tripitaka has held her and helped her and kept her alive through all of this, tethered her and anchored her and allowed her to drift and drown and then come back to life. She has been everything, more than everything, and all Sandy could offer in return was a memory. A single memory, small and fleeting, and not even a good one. What could she possibly say to express all that?

Nothing.

So that’s what she says.

 _Nothing_.

And somehow, that seems to be enough.

*


	24. Chapter 24

*

They stay in the sewers for a little while longer.

Recuperating. Breathing. Maybe mourning a little bit too.

Talking about the Scholar, about the things Tripitaka remembers from her time as his daughter, the things Sandy remembers from her time as the lost god he found, the things that make so much more sense now that she knows he knew her before.

It feels like weaving a tapestry, navigating all the places inside of her that were once cragged and deadly, that are now blooming and blossoming and endlessly bright. It feels freeing, and it opens up a thousand thoughts, questions both intriguing and unwanted, of what her life might have been if she’d known what had happened to her, or if it had never happened at all.

She won’t ever live those lives, of course, only the one she had, the one she did. The one where the Scholar found a broken, feral god in a dark, dank sewer and showed her where to look to find the light.

She is grateful for that, at least. And she is even more grateful for _this_ , the moment that came later, when he sat her down and shared his plans for the future, for a monk who would carry the name Tripitaka.

Tripitaka is grateful too, if the endless stream of ‘thank you’ is anything to go by.

It makes Sandy uncomfortable, and not least of all for the way the words always seems to come between tears. She understands a little better now, the notion of grief and joy at the same time, of a pain that isn’t completely painful, but it doesn’t make it any less strange. Tripitaka is still a holy name, a holy soul, even if they share a deeper bond now; Sandy feels unsteady, being the source of such unending gratitude coming from her, being seen as somehow deserving, somehow worthy.

“Please,” she says, when it all becomes too much.

She doesn’t know what she’s pleading for, only that she cannot endure any more.

Tripitaka smiles, nods, and wipes away her tears.

“Enough?” she asks, with the quietude of someone who wants to stay like this forever and the tenderness of someone who understands that her companion might not be able to.

“I...” But she’s still not quite sure what to say, and the only word she can get out is the same one as before. “Please?”

She looks around her old home, grounds herself in the familiarity of it, the damp walls and dark corners, the chains and cobwebs and dusty rags, the world she built for herself below the one that didn’t want her.

Home, the only one she ever knew, before Tripitaka appeared and showed her another. Feels strange, being in her arms, her new home, here in the shadows of the old one. Like casting off old clothes that don’t fit any more, or pulling apart something so thoroughly rotted there’s nothing left of it to save. Like stepping out of the ashes of some great world-ending disaster, to find everything washed clean.

She is wanted now, in the world above. And she has a new home, one that she can carry with her, one that wants to carry her too. A tiny world all wrapped up in monk’s robes, and Sandy is still so terrified of believing but all of a sudden she wants to. Wants so many things. And right now she wants to turn around and leave this place behind, her old home and her old broken self, and never have to think about it again.

She wants to set it on fire and watch it burn, flames dancing on the water, the rags and cobwebs and all the rest, this wretched place that tricked her into believing she belonged here.

She shivers.

Already standing by the door, the Shaman says, “We should go.”

Sandy is on her feet before she even sets her mind to motion.

“Yes,” she says, perhaps a little too hasty. “This place is not as safe as it once was.”

He nods his agreement, expression strangely sober. Sandy wonders for the first time if he has a home, if his life before Davari was a sad mirror of her life before Tripitaka, isolation and loneliness, waiting endlessly in the dark for someone to bring light to his world.

She doesn’t want to know. And perhaps a small part of her does.

Luckily for both of them, he doesn’t give her the chance to ask. He yanks the door open, rather more roughly than it needs, and has already vanished into the shadows beyond by the time Tripitaka has scrambled up from the floor to join them.

Sandy takes a long look around herself before she moves to leave. She wants to commit this moment to her newly-fixed memory, leaving the sewers with Tripitaka by her side, by choice this time instead of necessity. Not breathless and dizzy and in pain, lights flashing behind her eyes, reeling from strangulation. Not hunted and desperate, touched for the first time in her life by something divine and so afraid of losing it.

Not this time. She has almost lost Tripitaka so many times now, but they always find their way back here. Not to the sewers but to each other. Out of the dark and into the light, again and again and forever.

This time, when she leaves her old home, she is not afraid.

*

Back above ground, the air is fresh and clean and cool.

Sandy’s skin tingles as she steps out into daylight. Not really pleasant, it’s the feeling she used to get all the time when she lived here, the buzz of adrenaline every time she stepped out of the shadows, bracing for a threat that does not exist, for angry humans or feral demons or—

 _Life_.

At least, the only kind of life she could comprehend back then, the only kind she thought there was. When she was as sharp as the chill on the air, as dangerous as the poison dripping through the sewage pipes, as much of a monster as the demons who hunted her and the humans who hated her. When the light was something to be scared of, and so was she.

Now, reborn and repaired, she turns her face to the sky, takes Tripitaka by the hand and lets the the fresh clean air wash over her like a balm.

They stand there for a few moments. Soaking up the light and the world, the feeling of finally knowing what it means to thrive.

Then, at long last, Tripitaka looks up at her and says, “You weren’t, you know.”

Sandy blinks herself out of her reverie, confused and a little embarrassed. “I have and haven’t been many things.”

She expects a wry chuckle, disdain pretending to be amusement, the same semi-politeness she always gets when someone thinks she’s trying to be witty. Not this time, though; there is a sort of earnestness in Tripitaka’s eyes, dulled only a little by her earlier crying, and when she speaks again it’s with a quiet sort of urgency.

“You said you were an animal,” she says, gentle but with impact. “But that’s not what I saw.”

Sandy sighs, upset. She doesn’t want this moment ruined, but—

“You were looking at the wrong person,” she points out quietly. “Him, not me.”

“I was looking at you both.” Her voice rises a little. “I saw you, Sandy, just as clearly as I saw him. And I didn’t see an animal. I saw someone who had been treated so terribly for so long, she couldn’t remember how to be anything else.”

Idealism. Foolish, cock-eyed optimism. Sandy shakes her head.

“I don’t see a difference,” she says. “Whatever the reason, I was what I was. Living by instinct, driven by hunger and violence. I tore apart the things I killed. I _ate_ them. I lived in the dark and I hated the world, and I... the day he appeared, I wanted so desperately to kill him.”

“I know.” She squeezes her hand, oblivious to the tremors beneath the surface. “And I know, just like he knew, that you never would have been able to do it. However badly you wanted to, however desperate you felt, however hungry or scared or violent. He knew you then, and I know you now, and I think...” Tears again, brighter, carrying a little more grief, a little more pain, but just as much love. “I think the only person who doesn’t know you, Sandy, is you.”

The truth of it resonates like a blow, or like the sight of a star streaking across the night sky. It ignites everything, but only for a moment and then it’s gone, leaving her trembling and just a little bit transformed.

“I’ve never known myself,” she says, feeling the words hum all through her, body and mind. “Not truly. Not when I was a child, not when I was a feral creature. Certainly not now. I don’t know that I ever will.”

Tripitaka, beautiful and breathtaking, always so sure of what to do and what to say, looks up at her and glows like a lake in summer, still and sun-touched and serene.

“Well, then,” she says tenderly, “it’s a good thing you’ve got me.”

Sandy bites her lip, hard enough that she might have broken the skin if it — if _she_ — was a little more human.

“It is a good thing,” she says, with quiet passion. “But not because of that. Because _you_ are a good thing, Tripitaka. And I...” Her breath catches in her chest, her throat. “I am deeply, eternally grateful for you.”

It’s not what she wants to say. Not even the smallest part of it. But it’s the only thing her voice seems able to get out, and it hangs on the air like a promise or a prayer, like something as precious and perfect as Tripitaka’s smile.

Not what she wanted, no, but it’s enough. For Tripitaka, an expert now in reading her, it’s enough to figure out the rest, the deeper, complex feelings that don’t have a name yet, the things that Sandy is only beginning to fathom for herself. So many things inside of her, all so new and strange; maybe one day she will find the words to define them, but not here and not yet. She needs to find a way to define herself first, to know who she is. Only then, will she be able to find the words to express more important things.

If she is lucky, if Tripitaka is patient, there will be time enough for all that later.

For now, it’s enough to say only what little she can. Enough for Tripitaka to lift herself up onto her toes, to kiss her on the cheek and the mouth, and then to whisper, beaming and gleaming, “Good.”

For such a small, silly word, it carries unimaginable weight.

Sandy clears her throat, finds it full of grit and dirt and little pieces of her heart.

“We should...” she starts.

But that doesn’t mean she wants to.

Doesn’t want to go back to the palace, doesn’t want to face Pigsy or Locke or any of the memories she knows are waiting there, but they cannot leave the town until everything is in its proper place.

So, yes, they should.

Tripitaka, always bound more to her obligations than anything else, nods and pulls away, affection and warmth slowly draining away into seriousness and duty. Goodness, and the need to do what must be done, even if it goes against what she wants for herself. She may not believe it’s true, no more than Sandy believes any of the things Tripitaka says of her, but she really is the purest monk of them all.

And so they go. The two of them hand-in-hand, and the Shaman trailing behind them like a silent, brooding shadow.

*

A too-short walk, and they’re back. 

Back to the palace, the waiting world, friends and enemies and everything in between. To the gates, imposing and frightening, forged to keep them out. To the stone steps and the looming door, to the vast echoing hallways, the endless spiral staircase, then up and up and up, to the big bedroom with its big window and its big bed and—

Everything.

Monkey, standing guard at the door, waves a casual greeting. “You two really need to stop running off with that stupid demon,” he gripes playfully, pointedly not speaking to the Shaman. “People are going to get ideas. And by ‘people’, I mean me. And by ‘ideas’, I mean to hunt him down and lock him up with Her Majesty.”

The Shaman’s lips twitch. He looks shockingly close to smirking, but he holds the impulse at bay and settles instead for rolling his eyes.

“Do calm yourself, Monkey King,” he quips. “I would never deign to ‘run off’ anywhere without your express approval.”

Monkey huffs. “Good.” Clears his throat, looking suddenly awkward. “I mean, uh... good.”

He’s sort of flushing as he says it. Strange; the moment seems mostly in good humour, but Sandy gets the feeling there’s something a bit more serious lurking behind the words, something creeping closer and closer as their time in Palawa draws shorter.

They haven’t really spoken about this, she realises. About what will happen once they’re done here, whether the Shaman will disappear into the ether, hopefully never to be seen or heard from again, or whether Monkey will insist again, as he always has, on punishing him for his former crimes, no doubt chaining him up in the cell beside Locke’s for extra poetic justice.

Sandy knows which option she’d prefer. Knows what Tripitaka would prefer as well, humane and kind as she is. But neither of them suffered as Monkey did in the breaking ground, and it hardly seems fair to dismiss his pain just because the demon that caused it has since helped to end hers.

It is complicated. It is messy and so, so complicated. And Monkey, more than anyone Sandy has ever met, hates when things are complicated.

Something in the look on his face says this isn’t the time to bring it up, though. Sandy might still be a wide-eyed amateur when it comes to social interaction, but she’s starting to learn when to stay quiet.

So she looks past him instead, pretends she doesn’t see the look on his face, the heat and the conflict and all the rest of it. Ignores him, as best she can, and peers into the room, to the bed, to—

 _Empty_ , the bedsheets rumpled and thrown back.

Locke, back on her feet, standing by the balcony, gazing out at the waterfall. Pigsy, standing diligently by her side, a little too close, a little too intimate, a little too—

Sandy sucks in her breath, unprepared for the wave of emotion that floods her chest. Doesn’t even understand it, in truth. Only knows that it turns her vision red, makes her have to clench her teeth to keep from clenching other parts, to keep from using those parts to do terrible things.

“You’re up,” she hears herself say.

It comes out strange. Sort of strained. Like she’s trying to sound happy in spite of herself, or like she’s trying to sound angry but can’t quite manage that either. Maybe a bit of both; she’s not entirely sure what she feels, and her voice, high and quavering, makes that very clear.

Wrong and ragged as it sounds, it’s enough to make Pigsy flinch. He turns away from the window, away from Locke, features twisted in a grimace, shoulders hunched, like he’s trying to hide his big broad body and his big broad heart. Ashamed of the way he keeps finding himself at his ex-lover’s side, perhaps, the way he keeps finding himself caring, hoping in spite of himself to catch some small moment of clarity, a spark, however small, of remorse in her pale dead eyes.

Sandy doesn’t blame him for that, though she wishes she could.

It hurts, seeing him with her like this, the way he softens seemingly against his will, the way he sort of smiles without even realising it, the way he aches — visibly, tangibly, with every part of his body — to find a way to forgive someone who has worked so hard to make herself unforgivable. It hurts, watching the way his feelings overpower him, the way he can’t seem to let go of them, even now, even knowing the damage they did to—

To—

“What of it?”

Locke’s voice, as rough and unpleasant as ever, batter their way into Sandy’s thoughts like a door slammed on her finger.

Sandy clears her throat. Tries to clear her mind as well, but that’s not nearly so easy. In spite of herself, she’s feeling vulnerable, sort of trapped and frightened. Shouldn’t, she knows that, but Locke has been weak for so long it’s a startling shift to see her standing again, strong and steady, as though nothing happened to her at all.

“Just observing.” Her voice is still too tight, too high. “Glad you’re feeling better.”

“If that’s what you call ‘glad’, I’d hate to see you miserable.”

“Yes,” Sandy says, soft now and just a little bit menacing. “You certainly would.”

Tripitaka finds her hand, guiding her gently back to herself.

She doesn’t say anything, but of course she doesn’t need to. Sandy can feel the warmth and protection flowing between them; doesn’t need it, but it’s comforting to know that it’s there just the same, that if she finds herself floundering she only needs to reach out and find her anchor waiting. She wonders, awed and dazed, if this is how it will be for the rest of their time together, if she’ll have to start getting used to the concept of feeling safe.

A strange, overwhelming thing. Feeling safe. Being loved. It grazes so close to _thriving_ , she starts to shiver.

Shakes her head, pushes the thought to the back of her mind, then steadies herself and turns her attention back to Locke. 

Catching the look on her face, Locke heaves a big, dramatic sigh. “Suppose it’s back to the ol’ cell now, eh? Now I’m back on my feet, no sense beating around the bush.”

Sandy defers to Pigsy. She doesn’t know why, but there it is.

He blinks his surprise, coughing. “Uh. Makes sense, yeah.”

“Do you want to go back?” Sandy asks Locke. Not sure why she does that either, or why she still cares; she should have given up days ago on searching for a flicker of humanity in someone so lacking, but much like Pigsy she finds herself still clinging to hope. “Willing to face your punishment? Or have you simply grown bored with the view here?”

“Why choose? Can’t a girl be both?” She turns away from the balcony, faces Sandy completely; it takes more than she will ever admit to keep her body from flinching. “I don’t do well being stuck in one place, sweetness. Better a prison cell than a rickety old bed. At least there I can get up and move around some.”

“Not much,” Sandy remarks, “with a chain around your neck.”

She relishes that a little, perhaps more than she should admit.

Locke shrugs, unruffled by the petty spite. Knowing her, she probably admires Sandy rather more for indulging it. “Still better than being tucked up like a baby with this imbecile worrying himself sick for no reason.”

Sandy does flinch at that. Doesn’t expect it to sting as deeply as it does, hearing the truth of it spoken so starkly: that he might be more worried about his evil ex-lover than his current friend, less for the person he broke into pieces and more for the monster who made him do it. She wonders, feeling violent, how many times he’s asked Locke if she’s well, if she’s sure, if there’s anything he can do to make her more comfortable.

He never asked her any of those things. Not even the first one, not even ‘are you all right?’. Too busy apologising for being the reason the answer would have been ‘no’.

Sandy’s fists clench at her side. Her stomach is in knots, her heart a jagged rock hammering at her ribs.

“Oh,” she hears herself murmur, bitterness that stings her tongue. “So that’s where all his worry went.”

Pigsy winces.

So does Tripitaka. “Sandy...”

It helps. She wishes it didn’t.

“Sorry.” She’s not, but it makes Tripitaka relax a little, and that’s a good enough reason to pretend she is. “It’s difficult. I know, I understand.”

Pigsy looks like he wants to be sick, or perhaps like he wants to throw himself off the balcony and fall and fall and fall.

“Yeah.” He still doesn’t have the courage to look her in the eye. “I wanted to... you know, I wanted to ask you. Talk to you. Reach out. I really did. I just... I didn’t know how. Didn’t know what to say, didn’t know if I should, if you would’ve wanted me to. After you found out what I... that is...” His breath rattles noisily. “Maybe I should’ve tried harder. Asked you if you wanted... well, anything, I guess.”

“Yes, you should,” Sandy says, though they both know perfectly well that it wouldn’t have gone over any better if he had.

If he sees the half-lie, he doesn’t acknowledge it. Takes her word as truth, and bows his head. “I’m sorry. Really. I’m just... I’m still pretty lousy at the whole ‘confrontation’ thing. Still a coward at heart, I guess.”

Locke splutters, trying half-heartedly to suppress a laugh. “They know, love. Wouldn’t have needed to drag you kicking and screaming out of my arms if you weren’t.” She doesn’t look at Sandy, but her voice softens as she speaks to her. “Don’t be too hard on him, yeah? He’s lousy at a lot of things, and that cowardice of his is well-trained. Had a bloody good teacher, he did, one who knew exactly how to keep him that way.”

It’s the first time she’s shown any willingness to accept responsibility. Not just for Pigsy’s terrible deeds, but for anything at all. Sandy is so stunned that for a moment she can’t speak.

Somewhat unadvisedly, Pigsy does it for her. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out, before she can find her voice. “It’s just... it’s easier. Pouring it into her instead. Even if she doesn’t deserve it.”

Makes sense, Sandy concedes. He knows where he stands with Locke; specifically, he knows that he’s chosen not to, chosen instead to stand against her. Easy to bleed worry for someone he knows he’ll be leaving soon, someone he’s already left once and found himself better off. No repercussions, no unpleasant fallout to work through. A simple, harmless vent for all the things he can’t say while looking into the eyes of the child whose mind he destroyed.

“Still a coward,” she acknowledges quietly, then turns back to Locke. “You should enjoy it while you can. His worry, his compassion, his heart. Because when he leaves, it’ll be gone. And I have a feeling you won’t see anything like it again for a very, very long time.”

That seems to strike a nerve; Locke actually flinches a little. Sandy wishes she didn’t feel so viciously vindicated by that.

“Well, then,” Locke mutters after a short moment, only slightly shakier than usual. “It’s a good thing I don’t hold with all that sentimental rubbish, isn’t it?”

And she moves away from the balcony, and from Pigsy, like she thinks the distance will somehow make it more convincing.

Watching her, Sandy feels angry and sad at the same time. Wishes she didn’t feel as much, wishes she wasn’t as desperate as Pigsy to see even the faintest glimmer remorse, a ghost of potential for change. It tugs at her gut, the sight of her, and even now it’s such a challenge, trying to figure out what she wants to feel and why she’s so desperate to feel anything at all.

There is deep, aching softness inside Locke. But she is also more calculated and calloused and has a greater potential for cruelty than anyone Sandy has ever met, demon or otherwise. If she was capable of atonement, she could become someone good and terribly kind; under the right guidance, willing to accept the right kind of help, she could become like Monica, fiercely protective and dedicated to the people who look up to her. But there is something missing inside of her, a hole much wider and more destructive than the ones in Sandy’s head.

Her body bows a little to think of it, to open herself up to the idea that perhaps, when all is said and done, Locke is simply unable to feel the things they want her to. Remorse, compassion, empathy. Much like Sandy’s mind, straining for sanity that it will never possess, perhaps Locke’s heart is simply incapable of holding those feelings.

Pity, Sandy decides at last. That’s what she wants to feel. Pity, and the tragic, too-deep understanding of someone who has also spent a long, long time not understanding why she couldn’t simply will herself to become something she’s not. More human, more normal. More like what _they_ would want. But she can’t. She can only be what she is — mended but still mad — and perhaps so can Locke: a heart, yes, but one so riddled with holes it will never capture anything.

She wets her lips, tucks the useless feelings aside, and looks at Pigsy. “You should take her back to the cell,” she says. “She’s right: no use in delaying the inevitable if she’s well enough now.”

Pigsy starts a little, but nods his agreement without protest. He’s conflicted, though, and probably for a number of reasons. Maybe unwilling to let her go again, maybe unwilling to cast aside his scapegoat. Maybe just unwilling to accept that it really is over, all his dark secrets brought to light, nothing left to do but make peace with it, send the past back to the shadows where it belongs, then wish it well and move on before it can consume him.

 _Them_.

She turns away as Pigsy straightens his shoulders, bracing for the task ahead. Doesn’t want to see the look on his face as he resigns himself to do what must be done. It’s one thing to make the decision, she knows, but another to actually go through with it, and whatever she might think or feel about him personally, she has only sympathy for this.

Locke pauses in the doorway, all feigned dignity and bravado. Looks over her shoulder and catches Sandy’s eye. “You know it won’t stick, right?” she says cheerily. “It never does.”

And then the door slams shut, cutting off her cackling laugh like a brick through a glass window.

“She’s right about that,” Monkey mutters, in the silence that follows. “She’s a snake. Doesn’t matter how many times you put her away, she’ll always find some hole to slither out of.”

He’s probably not wrong about that. They’ve defeated Locke twice now, and both times she managed to find a way to put off her imprisonment or escape it entirely. Sandy doesn’t doubt for a moment that she’ll do the same thing again here, that one way or another her prison cell will be empty by the time the people of Palawa decide to pass their judgement on her.

“There is a certain correlation,” the Shaman muses, speaking mostly to himself, “between cruelty and survival. Those of us who are willing to do whatever it takes to survive are generally the ones who do.”

Sandy keeps her eyes on the door. It looks terribly heavy. “I don’t know that ‘cruel’ is the word I’d use,” she says thoughtfully. “Calloused, yes. Calculated, certainly. But not cruel.”

“I don’t see a difference,” Monkey mutters. “You’re all hung up on how she doesn’t do her own dirty work, like that makes her better. As far as I’m concerned, it just makes her worse.”

Sandy isn’t sure it’s quite as simple as either of those things, better or worse. She’ll probably never know the truth of it, if there is a single truth to know, if Locke keeps her hands clean for selfish reasons, deniability and her beloved reputation, or if she truly lacks the stomach for that sort of cruelty. Motivation means a lot in things like this, and Sandy doesn’t think she’ll ever know — wonders, sometimes, if even Locke truly knows herself — why she acts the way she does.

“I hope she can learn,” she says, ignoring Monkey. “Hope she can grow and evolve, like he has. But I don’t know if it’s possible for her.”

“Neither do I,” Tripitaka sighs. Softly, gently; Sandy doesn’t need to see the sorrow in her eyes to know she’s thinking of the Scholar, his boundless faith, his enduring compassion. “But hope is a precious thing. Sometimes it’s the only light we have.” She takes Sandy’s hand, clings to it like it’s precious too, like she is. “Hold onto it.”

“Sentimental nonsense,” the Shaman mutters to himself.

Monkey glances at him, approving and somewhat amused. “I keep telling them that,” he huffs. “They never listen to me.”

“Because they are fools,” the Shaman says. “If this adventure has taught me nothing else, it has at least taught me that.”

Tripitaka laughs, rolling her eyes, but she doesn’t argue.

Sandy bows her head. She knows that she’s being insulted, knows that they see only weakness in the way she softens towards the demon who did such unspeakable things. Feels the same way herself too, sometimes, and she still doesn’t know if it’s the right thing to feel. But she believes in Tripitaka, and the way she looks at her when she tries to forgive, when she searches for hope and faith in unlikely places... that means the whole world to her.

“I don’t mind being that way,” she says out loud, to all three of them. “I spent many, many years being the opposite. Violent and vengeful, starved of everything but hate and hurt. Having hope, I’ve found, is much more pleasant.”

Tripitaka makes a small, strangled sound, and throws her arms around her with such ferocity that Sandy has to stumble backwards or be bowled over. She doesn’t really understand it, the sudden fierceness or the scalding tears seeping into her skin through her clothes. Doesn’t understand anything, as always, but this time she doesn’t need to; her body can grasp what her mind can’t, and it falls into Tripitaka’s embrace like being there is the most natural thing in the world.

Above her, some distance away, she hears Monkey snort.

“As I said,” the Shaman mutters. “ _Fools_.”

Safe in Tripitaka’s arms, wrapped up in warmth and hope and love, Sandy smiles.

*

It is some time before Pigsy rejoins them.

That’s fair enough, Sandy supposes. Some separations only get more difficult the more times you have to do them; it doesn’t take a genius, or an expert in empathy, to know that this is one of them. She doesn’t need to see the ghosts behind his eyes as he slinks back in to understand that he’s upset. Doesn’t need to see the way he closes the door behind him, quiet and uncharacteristically subdued, to know that he’s trying to block it all out.

“It’s done,” he says, in a voice that suggests it’s only true on the surface, not inside his heart. “She’s not our problem any more.”

“She was never _our_ problem,” Monkey points out tartly. “Just _yours_.”

The last word comes out strangely sharp, tension pulling his mouth into a thin line. He’s not even trying to be playful, or to show the least bit of compassion; he is hard, unsympathetic, and dangerously close to genuine anger.

Pigsy notices it too. “Uh... yeah,” he says, guarded and careful. “True enough, I guess. But now she’s back in the hands of the people she wronged. They can decide how best to punish her.”

“Right.” Monkey takes a long step towards him, purposeful and not at all friendly. Tripitaka shoots him a warning look, but he ignores it completely. “So you got what you wanted. Or what you _pretended_ you wanted, right?”

Pigsy flinches. So does Tripitaka; the tension in her body ripples through them both, upsetting the momentary peace. Upset to see them fighting, maybe, or else a hint of her own guilt, flushing the same shade as Pigsy’s.

“Monkey,” she says, quiet but serious. “It’s over. Let it stay that way. If not for his sake, then...”

She doesn’t finish. Doesn’t have to; everyone in the room is suddenly looking at Sandy. She shrinks down a little, indulging the age-old instinct to hide, and sighs when Monkey makes an inquiring, interrogatory sound.

“I know why they lied about it,” she tells him. “Why they didn’t want to tell me the true reason for bringing her back here. Don’t have to like it, but I do understand. And even if I didn’t, their false reason was a good one: it is right that she be punished by the people she treated so badly.” She closes her eyes for a moment, lets the exhaustion wash over her. “I’m tired, Monkey. Of all the hurts I’ve endured, at least this one did some good.”

He studies her closely, frowning. Doesn’t move towards her or try to touch her or anything, but there is something protective and deeply touching in the way his shoulders bunch, the way he furrows his brow, hanging on her every word like he’s trying to pierce them for deception.

“You sure?” he asks, after a moment. “Because if you’re still angry...”

“I’m not.” She realises only as she says it that it’s not entirely true. “Well. Perhaps a little. But it doesn’t seem quite so important after everything else.”

He blows out a breath, frustration mingling with a desperate feint at understanding.

“Yeah,” he says after a beat. Slow, tense. “But I don’t _get_ any of that. All the stuff you went through, the stuff that happened to you, all of it. I just...” Another breath, growing ragged now, frustration rising, surging. “The lying thing, I get. The keeping-secrets thing. Getting angry and upset, feeling betrayed. That stuff. And he hurt you in, like, a thousand different ways. And I don’t understand any of them except that one. So I want to yell at him for that. Because it’s the only part of this stupid screwed-up mess that I understand.”

He’s shaking a little when he finishes, the frustration bleeding out and twisting into humiliation, shame at having let out something so close to an emotion, to sentimentality, to caring. So much of that, it seems, coming from all directions. Sandy feels loved and cherished and so overwhelmed she can hardly breathe.

“Monkey,” she whispers.

“I know.” He’s scowling now, not really speaking to her any more, just trying to distance himself from the emotions. “It’s stupid.”

Sandy shakes her head. She doesn’t know what to say, though, how to properly express how much it means to her. For all the differences between them, this is something they both share: an acute, visceral discomfort when it comes to their feelings. That he would try so hard to connect with her suffering, that he would cling to something so small, so meaningless... she, more than anyone else in the room, even Tripitaka, knows how significant that is.

“Not stupid,” she tells him, careful but still painfully clumsy. “But I think you understand more than you realise. You’ve been there so much, Monkey, and you have helped me in moments when even Tripitaka couldn’t. Helped to quiet my mind when it was too much to bear. Tempered my temper when it tried to overwhelm me. Listened to me when I had no-one else to talk to, when I thought even my anchor had betrayed me and deceived me...”

She trails off, glancing guiltily at Tripitaka. She sort of expects a flicker of jealousy, possibly lingering guilt, but instead she only finds quiet joy, prayerful and hallowed. Reverent, almost, like the bond between her friends means just as much to her as it does to them. Sandy doesn’t know what to do with all this love, so much of it from such vastly different sources.

“She is correct,” the Shaman interjects, looking at Monkey. “I know very little about your inter-relations, and care even less, but I’ve spent a great deal of time inside her mind over the last few days. I have witnessed first-hand the comfort she drew from your presence, your willingness to engage in barbaric activities, your understanding of her need for such things.” He doesn’t look particularly impressed, but his voice makes it clear that he is. “The list is extensive. Do not sell short your contribution throughout this ordeal.”

Monkey flushes, embarrassed and flattered in equal measure; it seems to mean more coming from the Shaman than it does from Sandy. No doubt he thinks it’s more trustworthy from someone who has no reason to lie to try and spare his feelings. Another moment of acceptance between them, Sandy thinks fondly, and finds that for once she doesn’t mind being the catalyst.

It’s a moment before Monkey comes back to himself, shakes off the embarrassment and looks back at Sandy. “Didn’t have to do much,” he says, still flushing a little. “You were strong enough without me.”

“Untrue,” Sandy says, and lets the honesty swallow her. “You were... I don’t know that I have the words. I don’t know if the words even exist.”

True. She thinks of all the moments they’ve shared, small but so precious. The long journey from the Jade Mountain, the way he would take her aside and spar with her until they were both exhausted; here, in the palace, after she learned what they others already knew, the way he brought her to the waterfall and shared his own private pain, his darkest moments of betrayal; later, sparring again, working together through their shared anger.

He has been there, she realises, far more than she ever thought, and she doesn’t know what more to say, how to even begin to thank him for all that he’s done, the support he’s given, selfless and unthinking, without either one of them really realising it had happened.

“What she means,” Tripitaka says, tactful and helpful and perfect, “is ‘thank you’.”

And for once, it’s true; simple though it is, it’s precisely what she does mean. She gets the impression, though, that Tripitaka isn’t only speaking on her behalf, but for herself as well, for the moments when mistrust and pain and anger got between them, when she was unable to be the anchor Sandy needed, when they were not enough to push through their myriad hurts and losses together.

It’s a lot to pour into two small words, but Tripitaka has always had a talent for making small things seem so much bigger.

“Yes,” Sandy says. Evidently, she still lacks that particular talent; coming from her, small words just sound small. “Thank you, Monkey.”

“Uh huh. Sure.” He’s flushing rather a lot now, and tugging at his collar, so she must have said something right. It only lasts a moment, though; as soon as he realises he’s doing it he clears his throat, straightens his spine, and mutters, “Are we going to sit around chit-chatting all day, or are we actually going to get out of this dump?”

Sandy looks to Tripitaka, feeling the question like a body-blow. Hopeful, a little bit desperate. She doesn’t know why she feels it so keenly all of a sudden, the need to put some space between herself and this place, Palawa and everything in it. The palace, the sewer, the people, and all those memories, good and bad, still churning inside of her. All of it, everything.

Sensing her distress, perhaps sensing as well that she doesn’t really know where it came from or why, Tripitaka squeezes her hand and pulls her in a little closer.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, secret and private and for Sandy alone. Then, louder, to the rest of them, “I think that’s a good idea. We’ve stayed here long enough. And there’s nothing left but bad memories for all of us.”

“Not all bad,” Pigsy says quietly, to himself. Not the wisest thing to say, but it seems he can’t help himself; even now, he can’t turn away completely from the life that made him who he is. “But yeah. Wouldn’t want to outstay our welcome, right?”

“It will be good for you,” the Shaman tells Sandy. “Some brisk exercise, and the chance to reestablish your old routines. It will help your mind to settle.”

 _To distance yourself,_ he doesn’t add, _from the things that still cause you pain_.

He doesn’t wear the compassion on his face, doesn’t seem to even realise it’s in him at all, but she can see it nonetheless, glimmering like gold dust in the crinkling corners of his eyes, the slight lift of his lips, not a smile but a subtle sort of encouragement. They may have their conflicts, demons and gods and the bad blood still dripping between them, but he has come to care about her — about all of them, she suspects, if he’s honest — rather more than he ever anticipated, or wanted.

“Thank you,” she says to him, and not just for the encouragement.

He grunts, and in an instant his trademark indifference is back in place.

Sensing the delicacy of the situation, Pigsy clears his throat. “Mind if we make one quick stop first?”

Instantly belligerent again, Monkey rounds on him. “Haven’t you made enough requests already?”

“Nothing like that.” Still, he can’t quite keep from scowling a little, defensive too in his own way. Still, he’s careful to keep a safe distance as he holds up the keys to Locke’s prison, dangling noisily from one finger. “I just figure, we should probably find someone trustworthy to keep an eye on Locke. You know, since we’re not going to be here to do it ourselves?”

Monkey growls again at that, but this time he keeps his feelings to himself.

Tripitaka, meanwhile, is beaming like she’s just been given a precious gift.

“I think,” she says, with a bright, beautiful smile, “I know exactly who to ask.”

*

As if there was any other choice.

The tavern is back to normal when they return, busy and bustling and noisy. People everywhere, orders and conversation shouted out in loud voices, the air heavy with smoke and song and the smell of stale liquor. It makes Sandy feel weak at the knees, overstimulated in all her senses; if the choice were hers she would wait outside in the cool air, but Tripitaka won’t allow it.

“Last chance to say goodbye,” she says, kind but firm. “Don’t you think you owe her that this time?”

Sandy squints through the smoke and chaos. “This is hardly the place for a fond farewell,” she mutters.

True enough. But when has that ever stopped Tripitaka?

Or Monica, come to that.

She’s darting about behind the bar, trying to serve half a dozen patrons at once, but she stops in her tracks the instant she lays eyes on her newest visitors. Shadows under her one good eye, dark lines pulling tight at the contraption over the other, still she looks infinitely happier than she did the last time they saw her. At ease, almost. Sort of unburdened.

“Thought I’d seen the last of you lot,” she says, even as her face breaks into a broad smile. “Not that I’m complaining, mind. Never mind the mess, pull up a seat.”

Looking around at the clamour of customers, Tripitaka quirks a bemused brow. “We can come back when you’re not so busy?” she offers. “If that’s easier for you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, my girl,” Monica says. She cocks her head towards the kitchen, a wordless instruction for them to get out of the way and into the relative quiet, then notices Monkey skulking sullenly at the back of the group. “Then again, I’ll never turn down a good, strong pair of hands. Make yourself useful, eh?”

And she clicks her tongue at him, like he’s just another one of her staff.

Monkey gawks at her, slack-jawed with disbelief. And with sound reason: there aren’t many in the world who would dare to boss him around like that, and fewer still who’d do it with a grin on their face, oblivious to the power crackling at his fingertips. For a second or two, Sandy almost expects him to pull out his staff and start dispensing discipline, but he doesn’t. On the contrary, once he recovers himself, he snorts a laugh, shrugs his big shoulders, and saunters up to the bar like he owns it.

“Knew you couldn’t keep this place going without me,” he quips, grinning for the first time in several hours.

Monica rolls her eye, but Sandy can tell she’s fighting a grin of her own. “Less bragging, more bartending.”

He snaps off a mock-salute, then waves the Shaman over. “If you behave yourself,” he says with a sly smirk, “I’ll teach you how to mix a cocktail that’ll blow even your oversized brains out.”

To everyone’s surprise — except Monkey’s, apparently — the Shaman actually obeys.

“I have no need for, nor interest in, your ridiculous beverages,” he grunts, wrinkling his nose. “But the tavern owner has been accommodating and generous with her time, and it would do no harm to assist her.”

Monkey’s smirk only grows wider. For the first time since this began, he looks almost content.

Monica gawks at him for a moment, brows raised almost to her hairline. “Well, well,” she murmurs, shaking herself and ushering the rest of them into the kitchen. “Never thought I’d see the day. What spell does that demon have on him, do you think?”

“Damned if I know,” Pigsy says, more to himself than the rest of them, eyes downcast. “But whatever it is, I’d love a taste. First time I’ve seen a smile on his face in days.”

“Monkey’s not as stubborn as he wants to be,” Tripitaka says, glowing with warmth. “He’s seen how much the Shaman’s done for Sandy. I think this is his way of making amends.”

“Aye, I’ll bet that’s it,” Monica says, in the voice of one who’ll need a whole lot more convincing to believe that. “Amends.”

Sandy keeps her opinion on the subject to herself. She knows considerably more about it than Monica, and rather more than even Tripitaka, but it’s not her place to talk about it. She won’t belittle Monkey’s struggles by making them a source of cheap gossip; it’s a bitter enough pill for him to swallow, realising that he doesn’t hate the Shaman as much as he wants to, that he perhaps doesn’t hate him at all, to take those first delicate steps towards forgiveness and a struggling sort of reconciliation. Sandy knows better than most how difficult those things are, and it is not her place to talk about it behind his back.

“Doesn’t matter,” she mutters, a bit self-conscious and a bit defensive. “As long as they’re not at each other’s throats, what business is it of ours?”

Monica narrows her eye, but seems to think better than to push it. “A fair enough point, I suppose,” she concedes, then shrugs and changes the subject with the easy finesse of someone well-practised in such things. “So what about you, then?”

Sandy feels herself blanching. “Me?”

“No, the slack-jawed idiot standing behind you.” She doesn’t laugh when Sandy turns to check, but it’s a close thing. “Seriously. You doing okay? I can’t very well say you’ve got your colour back, but you’ve definitely got a touch of something.”

“My mind,” Sandy explains, not quite as cheerful as perhaps she should feel. “Most of it, at least. Everything back where it should be. My memories, and the pieces of myself I’d lost. All of it, all of me. Back to...”

But she can’t bring herself to say ‘normal’ when she still feels so much the opposite. Madness still lurking at the fringes of her mind, her thoughts, her speech; madness, and she knows now that she will never escape it, that it always was and always will be a part of her. She doesn’t know how to put into words that this is what ‘normal’ means for her: that there is comfort to be drawn from being mad, from being simply mad instead of broken and traumatised. It is not something she thinks someone like Monica could ever understand.

Tripitaka, meanwhile, does. A little, at least. She steps between them, as gentle and tender as she always is and says, in a soft, loving breath, “Back to the way it should be.” Her smile ignites the whole room. “Back to _herself_.”

Sandy shuffles her feet. Looks down at her boots so she doesn’t have to look up and catch Monica’s appraising eye. “Yes. Um. That.”

Doesn’t help, looking down. She can still feel the weight of Monica’s gaze on her, the scrutiny in the drawn-out silence that follows; it takes all the strength she has to keep from surrendering to her old instincts and running away, running, running, hiding—

Again.

 _No_.

She takes a deep breath, swallows down the reflex and holds it there, submerged, drowning, dead. Waits for Monica to stop staring at her. Waits until it’s safe to lift her head and look around the cramped little kitchen, to see the world and let herself become a part of it again.

Finally, thoughtfully, Monica murmurs, “Glad to hear it.”

She sounds sort of sad, though, and when Sandy dares to look at her again she finds that same sort-of sadness throwing a shadow across her face. Not smiling and not wasting her time trying or pretending she can, she’s frowning, staring at her like she’s trying to figure out how much of that scrawny little girl is left in the still-scrawny-but-not-at-all-little god that came back.

“I’m not,” Sandy blurts out. Blinks when they all start to stare at her, then realises how it must sound, a response to thoughts nobody else heard. “I mean, uh, not... not-glad. I am... that.”

Monica massages her temples, glances incredulously at Tripitaka. “This is what she’s like when she’s better?”

“Yeah.” If she notices Monica’s eye on her, Tripitaka pretends she doesn’t; her smile is for Sandy alone. “It is.”

A low whistle from Monica, one that says a lot of things, but she chooses not to give them a voice. She just turns back to Sandy, feigning patience, and says, “Go on, then.”

Sandy gulps a couple of deep breaths. “I mean to say... you were looking at me just now like you were looking for _her_. And I’m not. Even if I wanted to be, she...” Her voice catches, falters, but she will not let her courage do the same. “She’s back where she should be, yes. But she... that is, I, me... I’ve come too far since then. Done too much, become too much. Suffered and struggled and lived. I’ll never be her again.”

She’s not just talking about her younger self, she realises, the sick and helpless child that found her way to this place, against all odds, from a little fishing village a thousand leagues away. She means her, too, but she also means the part of herself that was innocent, that believed she could defy what she was and be human again, believed she could become _normal_ , if she just wished hard enough, if she just found the proper person to fix what was wrong with her.

She has been fixed now, and she is better than she was. But she is not normal, and she is slowly coming to realise she never will be. The things that happened to her, the things that made her wrong in the first place, won’t just disappear just because she found the proper person to fix them.

She’s learned too much since she was that young, innocent child. She’s learned what it means to be a god, two separate times, learned that there was never anything wrong with her, no matter what her parents said, no matter what the demons did, no matter anything. She has learned the difference now, learned what it feels like when there really _is_ something wrong, all broken and jagged and shattered into more pieces than she can count, and she knows now that her younger self, the one so afraid of being _wrong_ and _dangerous_ and _not normal_ was the least of all those things that she would ever be.

She wishes she could go back and tell her that. _“If only you’d realised there was nothing wrong with you,”_ she’d say, “ _maybe there wouldn’t have been anything wrong with me either.”_

But somehow she doubts even the Shaman has enough power to speak with the past. Only to observe, to experience, and perhaps, with just a touch of good fortune, to learn from it.

And she did. And she has.

Oblivious to all that, Monica is shaking her head. “Wouldn’t want you to be her again,” she says, firm with conviction. “She went through hell, that girl, and even if _he_ —” She jabs a trembling, accusatory finger at Pigsy. “—hadn’t wrecked her the way he did, I don’t know that she could’ve turned out any different. Don’t know that I would’ve been able to provide what she... what I wanted to.”

Sandy blinks at that. A big confession, neatly wrapped up in a smaller one. _I would have taken care of you,_ she’s carefully not saying. _Wouldn’t have been any good at it, and you would’ve probably ended up worse off in the end, but I would’ve done it anyway._

She doesn’t want to think about what that might have meant for them both, and for Monica especially, the long-term consequences it would have had on a tavern owner ill-prepared to handle a frightened god-baby showing up on her doorstep. Wouldn’t want to force that responsibility onto anyone, even if it would have meant she’d grown up happy and whole and cared for.

“You would’ve had to give up everything,” she says quietly. “Your livelihood, maybe even your life. Would’ve had to go into hiding, turn your whole world upside-down. And for what?”

Monica sighs. “If you have to bloody ask...” She shakes her head, then glances at Tripitaka again, like she thinks she’s the only one capable of common sense. “You’re sure she’s back in one piece?”

“As close to it as she’s ever going to get.” Tripitaka shifts closer to Sandy, affectionate and a little protective. She doesn’t take her hand this time, but her fingers twitch eagerly at her sides, like she wants to. “I know you remember the way she was before, Monica, but she’s not... that part of her has been gone for a very, very long time. Even if her mind had never been damaged, you can’t undo all the years of isolation that came after, all those decades of loneliness and fear and pain. Damaged or whole, she’s always going to be...”

“Mad,” Sandy says flatly. “I’m always going to be mad.”

She won’t say it out loud, but it’s a strange sort of relief. Realising it’s true after all, the thing she believed for so long. Knowing that it’s still there, the old familiar madness, that it would have been there even without all of this. Knowing that she was not wrong to hold onto that little scrap of her identity, wrap it around herself as tight as all the rest and call it a part of who she is.

“Now, don’t you speak about yourself like that,” Monica chides. “Some of the wisest people I’ve ever known couldn’t string a coherent sentence together.” She closes her eyes for a moment or two, as though composing herself, then goes on a little more kindly, “We all grow up, Sandy girl. What we grow up into... it’s what the world makes us, and it’s what we make ourselves. No way to know for sure, which part is which.”

True enough, though Sandy certainly has a few suspicions about her own growth.

“I am what I am,” she says, trying to keep things simple. “As whole as the Shaman could make me, as whole as I am ever going to be. It may not be everything, but it is enough.”

“Good.” And though she must realise it’s a bad idea, Monica sweeps her into a great big hug. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you, my poor girl. Right from the start. All I ever...”

She stops, no doubt noticing the way Sandy’s body has gone rigid in her arms, instinct kicking in and making her wild, and she lets her go with a sigh.

Freed from the embrace, Sandy inches her way back, trying in vain to hold down her body’s primal responses, to keep from listening to its fight-or-flight reflexes, the instincts and urges that kept her alive for so long when survival was the only language she knew. Even after all this time, it is so difficult being touched without permission.

Only Tripitaka seems able to silence those instincts, to touch her without terrifying her too, without waking up the urge to run and hide. Possibly the Shaman too, in those moments when his touch and survival became the same thing.

But Monica...

Even knowing, even remembering...

And she does. Remembers everything about her, about them, about the way she felt back then, protected and sheltered and safe in this place, in her bed and her home and her arms. But she has grown, and she has become something much darker than she was, and she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to accept the violence of uninvited contact without rearing back or baring her teeth. Even from the kind soul who could have, and very nearly did, give her a home.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, but doesn’t stop inching backwards. “Sorry, I...”

Monica waves off the apology, just like she always does, and takes a long step out of Sandy’s personal space.

“My fault, Sandy girl,” she says. "Not yours. You never liked it much, even when you were small. I guess I just assumed you’d grown out of it some, what with how tactile you’ve gotten with...” Her eyes fall on Tripitaka, and she smiles the sly, fond smile of someone deeply invested in them both. “Well, no matter. That’s your business, not mine.”

“Not business,” Sandy says quietly. “It’s just... healing.”

“I’m sure it is,” Monica murmurs, still looking at Tripitaka with that proud, pseudo-parental smile. “And not just for you, I’ll wager.”

Tripitaka coughs awkwardly, trying not to blush.

“Anyway,” she musters. “That’s not why we’re here.”

Suddenly suspicion, Monica’s smile fades. “Eh?”

Drawing attention to himself for perhaps the first time, Pigsy clears his throat. Sandy has been trying very hard to ignore him, and judging by the look on her face as his looming presence reasserts itself, so too has Monica.

“Yeah.” He speaks carefully, uneasily, acutely aware of the discomfort everyone feels when they look at him and willing to accept their judgement on his shoulders. “Uh. We... that is, uh, we’re looking to move on. Now everything’s all... uh, back in the right place, as it were...” He doesn’t look at Sandy, but he’s the only one who doesn’t. “Figure it’s best that we get back to the, um, quest. Shaman’s orders and all.”

“Right.” She’s staring at him with a fixed, inscrutable look on her face, eye narrowed and mouth pulled into a thin line. “Figured this was a ‘cheerio’ type visit. There something else?”

“Actually, yeah.” It’s not like him to be so flustered, to struggle as much as Sandy does with basic, simple conversation; watching him flounder, she almost feels a little vindicated. “So, uh, the thing is... we brought Locke back here to help with all the memory stuff. I guess you know that already. But we also brought her back here because it’s where she should be. What she did to the people here... well, you know, you lived it.”

“Bloody right, I did.” Her eye is like diamond now, hard and keen. “Make your point, if you’ve got one.”

“Right.” He coughs again, sort of spluttering. “After everything she did to this place, to its people... they should be the ones to punish her. You know?”

“No arguments here,” Monica says, then sobers swiftly. “You’d best not be asking me to be judge and jury, sunshine. Because the things I’d do to that monster, given half a chance, you don’t want to hear about.”

Pigsy looks like he’s been struck a world-shaking blow. “Nothing like that,” he manages, in a ragged, hasty squeak, then holds up the prison keys. “But you’re the most trustworthy person in town. Figured you might like to take charge of keeping her in one piece.” His expression darkens a bit, tortured and dangerous at the same time. “Or, hell, just make sure she doesn’t starve to death before you’ve erected a gallows. Whichever.”

It’s frightening, the look on his face when he says that. Anger, untethered and unguided, like he’s feeling too much and doesn’t know where to turn it. He can’t blame Monica for her violent revenge fantasies, not after everything Locke put her through over the years, but he still can’t bring himself to hate Locke either, even if heknows he really should. Sandy wonders if a small part of him is angry at _her_ , for being the one to dredge up all this misery and pain in the first place.

Inexplicably, she wants to apologise. To him, to Monica, maybe even to Locke as well. To whoever it takes to make all this hard anger soften into something sweet once more.

It takes more strength than she’ll ever admit to bite her lip and swallow the words down.

Monica is studying Pigsy closely, eye narrowed and an odd look on her face. Like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. Like perhaps she admires him a little for it, in spite of herself.

“ _You’re_ asking _me_ to take charge of _her_?” she asks, slow and careful, like maybe she’s trying to make the words simple for his sake. “Even knowing what I want to do to her?”

Pigsy swallows thickly, then nods. “I trust you,” he says. “Hell, the whole village trusts you. And she’s not... that is...”

“She’s not our problem any more,” Sandy finishes, helping him out as best she can with the same words he used earlier.

He flashes her a quick smile, awash with thanks, then hastily turns away when she doesn’t have the strength to return it. She tries, she really does, but the sight of him still makes her spine and shoulders tense. Not anger, not any more, but a kind of discomfort that won’t be washed away.

Subdued again, Pigsy looks back to Monica. “Not our problem,” he echoes sadly. “Like she says.”

Monica snorts her derision. “She’ll always be your problem, sunshine,” she says, a little acerbic. “Whether she’s with you or not, you’ll be carrying her around for the rest of your bloody life. Don’t you dare try and fool yourself into thinking you’re free just because you’re dumping her in a prison cell and strolling off into the sunset with your little friends.”

“Not _little_ ,” Sandy mutters. She cuts a quick glance at Tripitaka, then amends, “Not all of us, anyway. Not any more.”

Tripitaka chuckles and pats her hand. “Most people seem little next to him,” she says. “But I think it was a figure of speech.”

“Uh huh.” Pigsy sounds very upset, but he’s not trying to hide from Monica’s glare. A little more courage than usual, if not much. “And she’s right about that. Can’t hand over the things I did as easily as I can hand over the keys to that prison cell. Can’t lose sight of that.”

“Glad you’ve got that much straight, at least.” Monica glowers at him for another long beat, seeming to relish the way he shrinks and cringes and shuffles his feet, then sighs and holds out her hand. “Go on, then. Hand the blasted things over if you’re going to.”

He jolts, visibly startled. Clearly he was expecting more of a lecture, and who could blame him? There are few people as well acquainted with his misdeeds as Monica; she’s the life and soul of Palawa, her tavern its beating heart, and Locke has always taken a sordid sort of pleasure in making an example of the place to the people who thrived here.

“Just like that?” Pigsy asks, frowning a little. “You’ll do it?”

“Why not? I trust myself a damn sight more than I’d trust you to stick around and see the job done.”

No arguing with that, and he doesn’t look like he’d be willing to try even if he could. He hands over the keys with a wan, apologetic smile, then slinks back to his corner like a chastened puppy, whimpering and whining, with its tail between its legs.

Monica studies the keys for a long time, brow furrowed in contemplation. Sandy’s not sure she wants to know what she’s thinking, what spiteful revenge fantasies might be playing out inside her head. She’ll do the right thing, of course — it’s why they’re trusting her with this, why everyone trusts her with everything — but it must be terribly tempting to just take justice into her own hands and wring the demon’s neck.

Sandy closes her eyes. Counts to ten to try and steady herself. Breathes in, breathes out, and—

“Don’t.”

Monica looks up sharply, eye narrowed with irritation. “You what, now?”

Sandy looks her in the eye as best she can while wanting to run away and hide. Keeps in her mind a vision of Locke as she was on the road, showing compassion and humanity a lifetime too late. Holds close another vision, too, one of Tripitaka smiling and holding her close, the warm smell of her robes, prayerful and perfect and preaching patience.

“I know she’s done awful things, Monica,” she rasps, with an urgency that surprises them both. “But please, don’t be cruel to her. Show compassion, kindness, patience. Treat her the way you treated me, the way you would have raised me if you’d had the chance: like you see more in her than she sees in herself.”

Hard to tell who reacts more strongly to that. Monica recoils sharply, as though suddenly struck by the weight of her own dark thoughts, seeing something brighter and clearer in a place she never would have expected. And Pigsy, still hunching his shoulders and cowering, stares at her with wide, tearful eyes, like she’s something powerfully precious, like the way Sandy feels when she looks at Tripitaka.

“Thank you,” he whispers, so low it’s almost soundless. “I... thank you.”

Sandy turns her face away. “Yes,” she mumbles. “Please don’t hug me.”

He doesn’t. Neither does Tripitaka, but she does rest a hand on Sandy’s back, fingertips feather-light and delicate, like she can sense her body needs grounding even if it also wants to flinch away from the touch, giving only as much as she knows she can endure.

Recovering herself somewhat, Monica heaves a sigh. “If that’s what you want,” she says, slipping the key into her apron pocket. “But it’s for you, not for her.” She locks eyes with Pigsy again, and her one speaks more than both of his. “And it’s definitely not for _you_ , sunshine. You’ve still got a long, long way to go.”

“I know,” he says. “Believe me. I don’t need you to tell me how bloody lucky I am that I’ve got this lot to help me get there.”

“Good.” Then, all of a sudden, she’s very sober, speaking not to the god who betrayed his kind and caused her so much personal suffering, but to the one who is trying so hard to do better. “Because these two are very important to me. And for some stupid reason they’re trusting you to help them stay in one piece. So unless you want me to hunt you down and rain bloody hell down on your thick, stupid head, you’d best do that. You understand? You keep my girls alive, or next time we meet, you won’t be.”

Pigsy almost smiles. Catches himself, though, and stops it from touching his face, tucking it safely out of sight before Monica notices and boxes his ears for it. “Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s what I want to hear.” She cuts a last quick glance at Sandy, then turns back to him again, scooting to the other side of the room. “Now, get that oversized hide of yours over here, boy. I have something for you.”

They all start at that, and none more than Pigsy. “For me?”

“Did I stutter, or are you being an idiot on purpose? _Move_.”

And so he does.

Sandy glances down at Tripitaka, finds a mirror of her own confusion. The kitchen is small enough that she should have no trouble overhearing whatever Monica is muttering in Pigsy’s ear, but either the tavern owner is an expert in keeping her voice unnaturally low or else she has some hidden magic to somehow repel attempts at eavesdropping. She wouldn’t put the latter past her, to be blunt; even without taking into account Monica’s inexplicable agelessness, such a gift would be valuable beyond measure to a woman in her line of business, and especially one with ties to the resistance.

She doesn’t ask, merely sulks her frustration at not being able to listen in. Watches, curious and confused, as Monica presses a small crumpled piece of parchment into Pigsy’s hand and murmurs something impossibly inaudible in his ear. She can’t make out what’s written on it, but Pigsy’s eyes widen as he reads it, then settle into something softer and ever so slightly sad.

“Right.” Unlike Monica’s, his voice does carry. “You got it.”

Sandy frowns. If this experience has taught her anything, it’s that she does not like secrets, and that secrets — more often than not — don’t take very kindly to her either. She wants to storm over there, to shake the magic or the talent out of Monica’s mouth, to force her to explain herself. She wants—

But even as her legs twitch with intent, Tripitaka lays a restraining hand on her arm, balming her restless temper. “Let them have their moment,” she says, very softly. “Whatever it is. It’s for them, not for us.”

“I don’t...” But even now, she can’t deny Tripitaka anything. Her body deflates under her touch, and she sighs, yielding and only slightly sullen. “As you wish.”

Tripitaka smiles up at her, beatific and full of light, then takes her hand and quietly leads her away.

*

Back, then, to the main tavern.

To Monkey, standing cheerfully behind the bar, showing off as is his wont. He’s juggling half a dozen of Monica’s best cups and pitchers, seemingly without breaking a sweat. Monica’s customers, as loud and rancorous as before, are thoroughly entranced by his acrobatics, while the Shaman, loitering on the other side of the room, watches with a disgruntled look on his face.

“I fail to see,” he’s muttering as they enter, “how this is _helping_.”

“They’re happy, we’re happy,” Monkey explains cheerily. “And the less work we have to do, the happier everyone gets.”

Announcing her entrance with a loud cough, Tripitaka remarks, “I’m sure Monica will be ‘happy’ to hear that.”

Monkey freezes. One of the cups he was tossing slips out of his hand, smashing into a dozen pieces as it hits the ground; it’s followed by a second, and then a third. Disappointed, his adoring audience grumble their disapproval then slink back to their drinks; the Shaman, meanwhile claps a hand over his mouth, trying in vain to quash a laugh.

“The great Monkey King,” he deadpans. “Defeated at last.”

Sandy smiles. She can’t help herself. “I’m glad to see you two are enjoying yourselves,” she says, and means it more sincerely than her shaky monotone will ever convey.

“While I cannot claim to have learned anything about the fine art of tending bar,” the Shaman comments dryly, “the experience was certainly... enlightening.” He shakes his head, but as hard as he tries he can’t seem to suppress the glimmer of fondness behind his pale demon’s eyes. “Is our business here concluded? The road waits for no man... or god, as the case may be.”

Tripitaka nods her agreement, looking thoughtful. “Almost.”

“Excellent. I think we’ve lingered long enough, don’t you?”

Sandy looks around. Another busy, bustling tavern, full of noise and people and drink. A little too loud, a little too full, the ringing of voices to make her nervous and the smell of ale to make her queasy. It brings her back to the night at the Jade Mountain, too much alcohol in her belly and storms breaking in her head, the room spinning and churning, confusion and chaos and so much, so much—

 _So much_.

It’s different now, transformed. She understands much more, about herself and everything else, about who she is and where she fits into this loud, overwhelming world she’s still learning to live in. About the noise that surrounds her, inside and out, the places where it came from and all the little ways she’s found to make it more bearable. Such a terrible cost, understanding, but it is hers now, and no amount of ale or chaos or people will ever take it away again.

She looks at the Shaman, a healer in the guise of a monster, and then at Tripitaka, the smallest human with the biggest heart. And she takes in the sounds and the smells, the madness all around her, and she ducks her head and smiles.

“Yes,” she says, to the Shaman and to herself. “I think we have.”

*


	25. Chapter 25

*

There are no triumphant fanfares when they leave Palawa this time.

Only quiet contemplation, a little understanding, and a lot of feeling.

Another emotional farewell with Monica, punctuated this time by Monkey tapping his feet and the Shaman’s unsubtle muttering, and Sandy would not have it any other way.

It’s mostly for Tripitaka, anyway. She’s always been the most sentimental one of them, and doubly so when Monica is involved. She hugs her long and hard, laughing and crying and somehow managing both at the same time, and by this point Sandy is completely, inescapably convinced that Monica has some secret stash of magic in her somewhere because even though she’s standing right beside them she still can’t hear what she’s murmuring in Tripitaka’s ear.

Not too difficult to guess this time, though, if the look on her face is anything to go by. She keeps glancing at Sandy over Tripitaka’s shoulder, and her eye, already glimmering with tears, gets slightly darker each time she does.

 _I won’t hurt her,_ Sandy wants to tell her. _I’ll keep my mind under control, I’ll keep it quiet, I’ll hold down all my bad instincts. I promise I won’t hurt her, I promise I won’t make her regret choosing me, I promise I won’t do anything—_

But she knows she can’t promise any of those things.

This experience has taught her that in vivid, inescapable detail. She cannot promise, no matter how badly she wants to, that there won’t be pain in their future, that she won’t be the cause of it. Pain has a habit of finding her, she has learned, stalking her through the darkest shadows, cutting her down in the very moment she believes herself safe. To promise that it will never find her again, even now, would be foolish and harmful; she won’t insult either of them by doing so.

In any case, Monica would rap her knuckles until they they bled if she thought for an instant that she was lying.

And so she says nothing. Stands to one side, shuffling her feet and pretending not to notice the way they keep looking at her. Looks at the ground and waits with queasy panic in her belly until it’s her turn to say goodbye.

“I’m going to hug you again,” Monica says slowly. “You all right with that?”

Sandy isn’t sure she is, but she nods anyway, biting down as hard as she can on her old instincts. She may not be her younger self any more, the child who found comfort and home in this woman’s arms, but she is not the other version of herself either, the feral, half-mad creature that would kill anyone or anything that came close.

Neither of those things now, she’s just her, a new person born from the ashes of them both. And she can — and she will, and she does — accept a simple hug from an old friend without flinching or baring her teeth or wanting to hide.

“You take care of yourself, Sandy girl,” Monica whispers in her ear, holding her close. “It’s been too bloody long since anyone did, and I’ll be damned if I’m letting you walk away again without promising that.”

“I will.” This, at least, she can promise. “I know my mind better now. A lot to work through, a lot of pain and trauma. But I know how to tend it now. And I am not alone.”

Monica nods, then pulls away. To Sandy’s surprise, her body sort of misses the contact; it moves of its own accord to follow, longing for the warmth, the intimacy, the affection. Tripitaka’s influence, perhaps, or else some fading ghost of her younger self.

Whatever the source, it makes Monica smile, and the sight of her like that, unburdened of some of her own pain, makes Sandy smile a little bit too.

“Well, well,” Monica says, ever so softly, like she’s afraid speaking too loud will chase the moment away. “Looks like there’s hope for you yet. Some day, maybe you’ll even be a real girl.”

Sandy shakes her head. “I’ve been one of those,” she says. “I remember her quite well now. But she’s been gone for many years, and now I’m something else. You can’t go back to what you were, not if you want to heal.” Her eyes fall on Tripitaka, waiting patiently with the others, and her heart swells until she’s sure it will burst inside her chest. “She taught me that.”

“She’s a good one,” Monica says. “A bloody good monk, for someone who never actually took any vows. Funny how that works, eh?”

“She makes me feel whole,” Sandy confesses, tremulous and trembling. “Makes me feel like what I am is enough. Even if I’ve got pieces missing or parts that will never work quite right. Even if being whole doesn’t stop me from being mad. Still, for her...” She trails off, awed and overwhelmed, then takes a deep, shaky breath and says, “Do you think I’ll ever be able to make her feel that way too?”

Monica follows her gaze, and her whole body seems to flood with warmth and life and love. She drops a big, strong hand onto Sandy’s shoulder, and for a long, blessed moment they simply watch her together, basking in the sight of her.

Then, at last, Monica says, with quiet reverence, “I think you already do.”

Sandy shakes her head. Unfathomable. Unimaginable. It is beyond her.

But then Tripitaka catches them watching her, and her face lights up like a sunrise, the start of a new day. It washes over her, over them, a glow of such untouchable light, and it is so, so hard not to believe when looking at her makes her look like _that_.

“I hope...” Sandy whispers, and bathes in that endless, perfect light and tries to find an end to that thought.

But there isn’t one.

Only that, a truth so pure and simple that it breaks her open and pulls her apart and does not leave a scar.

She looks at Tripitaka, and she hopes.

*

And then it’s over.

Nothing left to do but smile, bid Palawa a final fond farewell, and take their leave.

Again.

Back out into the world, the future stretching out before them, vast and endless. A jagged, mountain-crossed horizon and the early afternoon sun flashing like a beacon between the peaks. It is beautiful by any definition, but all Sandy can think about is the last time they took this path, the last time they heard the village gates clang shut behind them. The start of the quest, and their time together. The start of so many things, good and bad and in between.

Back, then, Sandy knew nothing but her own name. The world outside Palawa — the world outside the sewer — was a huge and impossible thing; she couldn’t have imagined how difficult it would be to adjust to it all. She was overwhelmed so easily, and by so little; this time, she is different. More worldly, more experienced, a little more comfortable in her skin. She’s seen and felt and become so much since the last time she stood here like this, and yet...

And yet somehow, she is just as nervous now as she was then.

She looks down at Tripitaka now, through different eyes, and sees someone new and someone old. Not a boy, not a monk, but she wears the same name and the same beautiful face. More lines, more experience, more of everything, but still _Tripitaka_. She’s changed, but she hasn’t.

So has Sandy.

And the others, too, each of them in their own way.

Monkey, just as arrogant and full of swagger as he was the day they first met, the day he caught her by the throat and pressed down so hard she saw stars. Still full of himself, blown up on his own self-importance, but softer now too, at the edges. Soft enough to lose a sparring match once in a while, when he thinks she might need a little victory. Enough to recognise compassion, in others and in himself. Enough to forgive, mostly if not completely, an enemy who wronged him in the most terrible ways. Enough that when Sandy catches his gaze now, he holds it until he’s certain she’s all right.

Pigsy, too, still a coward, but one who lets his cowardice weigh on him in a way it never did before. Who looks into the mirror and despairs of the person staring back. He has further to go than all the rest of them put together, but he is self-aware now, and willing to try. Feels it like the weight of all their things on his back, the burden of all his awful deeds, and while he may not yet have found the path to change, he realises at least that he needs to, that the only way he can be forgiven is to find a way to deserve it. To change, not just in his deeds but in his soul, his spirit, himself.

It’s good, Sandy thinks privately, that he is still with them. Without Tripitaka’s guidance, without Monkey to stand as a moral counterweight, she’s sure he would stumble and fall, trip over his old habits again and again until there’s nothing left of the will to try. Lose himself, just as she did, and drown in the thing he used to be.

She doesn’t want that for him. Wouldn’t want it for anyone, least of all someone she still considers a friend.

And then there’s the other difference. The one she’s rather hesitant to mention. The dark, demon-shaped shadow looming behind them, unspeaking but painfully present just the same.

For Monkey especially, it weighs heavily. He leads the way, as he always does, a few paces ahead of the others, making a show of scouring the horizon at every opportunity; easy to assume he’s completely forgotten about their fifth member — they’ve all grown so used to the Shaman’s presence, he’s practically invisible by now — but Sandy knows him too well to believe it. Just as she keeps a careful, anxious distance from Pigsy, she suspects the same is true of the way Monkey avoids and wilfully ignores the Shaman.

For his part, despite his insistences that he be freed from their service now his task is complete, the Shaman has made no efforts to part ways with them. It’s possible, she supposes, that he’s still concerned for her well-being, waiting until he’s certain his services are no longer required, but something in his expression says it’s more than just that.

Sandy thinks about asking him. They’ve shared so much, far more than she’d ever be comfortable sharing by choice, even with Tripitaka; she doubts he would withhold the truth if she asked for it now. He’s not expressive, doesn’t like to talk, but he is practical almost to a fault. If there’s a problem, however big or small, she trusts that he would sooner confront it than let it fester.

She doesn’t, though. Doesn’t ask, doesn’t speak to him at all. Tempting though it is, her loyalty remains to her own people, her fellow gods and most importantly, her friends.

And so, with some reluctance, she takes her leave of Tripitaka, picks up speed, and moves to match pace with Monkey.

He acknowledges with a grunt as she falls into step beside him, but doesn’t turn to look at her. Fair enough, Sandy thinks; she’s always found conversation more comfortable without eye-contact anyway. She studies him for a moment, trying to gauge his mood; his jaw is working, shoulders bunched painfully tight, the way he gets sometimes when he’s deep in thought or when he’s struggling with something difficult and doesn’t want the rest of them to know about it.

Sandy doesn’t speak. Lets him break the silence first, waiting patiently and bracing herself, knowing all too well that the first thing he’ll say will likely be:

“You good?”

She holds back a sigh with a great force of will. Doesn’t want to speak the truth, but she is terrible at lying. So she stares at the horizon, blinking at the sun until her eyes water, lets the moisture obscure her vision to make speaking easier.

“Getting used to it.”

Truthful without giving away too much. She doesn’t specify what. Too many things to name, and that’s not why she’s here. Still, he takes a moment to glance at her face, assessing, like he’s trying to figure out which one of the little weights inside her is the heaviest, which one he’s most able to help lift up and carry for a bit. It is touching beyond words, and doubly so from him.

“We’ll take a break soon,” he says, when he’s done scrutinising her. “I’ll let you kick my ass if you want.”

Sandy smiles. Genuine this time, and as warm as her cold body is capable of getting.

“Don’t have to _let_ me,” she retorts. “I could do it whether you want me to or not.” She takes a deep breath, steadying herself, then grabs the opening that’s presented itself: “You’re distracted. Easy to take advantage of. I could put you down right now, if I wanted to. Fortunately for you, I’m feeling generous.”

Monkey guffaws, then jabs her in the ribs, playful but not gentle.

“I’m not distracted,” he huffs, though the tension in his voice says otherwise. “I’m _focused_. We were holed up in that stupid town for days, thanks to you, and now I’m out of practice.”

Even by his standards, the excuse is poor. Sandy rolls her eyes. “You need much practice for walking?”

“Navigating, you idiot.” Though he’s trying to keep his tone light and even, his irritation is tellingly genuine; it says more than he probably realises. “It’s been months since we last passed through this dump. Now we’re back again, and I have to figure out how to get where we’re going without having to retrace the same stupid steps we already took.” He glowers, still trying and failing to be playful. “You made a mess of it.”

“I...” The smile falls from her face; stung, she swallows. “I didn’t come back here by choice, you know.”

He deflates a little, instantly contrite. “I know, I know. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then like what?” she presses, as carefully as she can. Subtlety is no more her strength than it is his, but she tries just the same. “You _are_ distracted, Monkey, and not by the horizon.”

He huffs a sigh, but doesn’t say anything for a long time. Keeps his eyes on the distant mountains, his jaw clenching and unclenching in rhythm with his long strides. Sandy falls back a couple of paces, enough to give him a little space if that’s what he needs to work through his thoughts, but not enough for him to assume she’s going to give up and leave him alone. Tact is not a talent either of them possesses in any measurable quantity, but this particular breed of unvoiced language they both speak with perfect fluency.

“You _know_ what,” he snaps out at long last, accusatory, practically spitting the words onto the ground. “That stupid idiot demon.”

Sandy does not smile. He’s not looking at her, but she has no doubt he’d know if she did. “I thought it might be something like that.”

“Ass.” He drops back a little, until they’re matching steps again, then goes on in a low, frustrated growl, “Should’ve insisted we lock him up with the stupid princess. Leave him behind in that worthless little village, let him rot there, never have to think about him again. Instead, he’s following us around like a puppy.”

“I don’t know that that’s what he’s doing,” Sandy murmurs, almost to herself.

“Whatever he’s doing,” Monkey grumbles, “he’s still _here_.” He seems a bit less upset now, though, for being able to talk about it. “And what the hell am I supposed to tell him? ‘Get lost, we don’t need you any more’? ‘Stick around, we could use a demon with your lousy fashion sense’?”

Sandy blinks. “Why tell him either of those things?” she asks carefully. “Why not just ask him what he wants to do?”

“Because I don’t _care_ what he wants to do,” Monkey snaps, like it’s obvious. “He’s done a lot for you. I get that. And maybe I’m over what he did to me. As over it as I’m ever going to get, anyway, which isn’t saying much. But even if I was over it completely, he’s still a demon. And I’m not about to... I mean, I _can’t_...”

He swallows, jaw turning pale with tension, and doesn’t try to finish.

“I see,” Sandy says, very softly. “It’s still... somewhat complicated.”

“Yeah. Like... even if I don’t hate him the way I did before, there’s still... it’s still a lot. You know?” He blows out a frustrated breath, like he’s trying to laugh but can’t. “Right. Of course you know. We talked about it. Hell, you kicked my ass about it. But it’s like...” Another growl, and then he swings his staff in a furious arc. “I want him gone. Want to send the bastard away and forget I ever laid eyes on him. But then, maybe there’s a little part of me that doesn’t want to get rid of the only person who might... who can...”

And he turns around and stares at Sandy, eyes wide and wet, like she’s the tiniest, most fragile thing he’s ever seen. Like he thinks she might break just from the way he’s looking at her.

“Oh,” she breathes, and her voice is as small as the rest of her looks, reflected in his shimmering dark eyes. “You think I’m still...”

“No!” Too quick, too hasty. The lie turns the air thick. “I mean, maybe? I don’t know. That’s the problem, isn’t it? I’m not the expert, _he_ is. And if we get rid of him... if he’s gone, and then you lose it again...” He shudders. Sandy doesn’t want to know how much time he’s spent thinking about this, about her weaknesses. “What happens then, huh?”

Sandy bites down on a whimper, a sniffle, the start of a sob. She’s been holding that particular thought close to her chest for a while, and it hurts terribly to hear it given a voice. Worse, to hear it in _his_ voice.

It takes her a moment to recover herself, to find her own voice in the maelstrom of his, of seeing all her own doubts etched onto his face. Takes a moment for her to look inside herself, to seek out her own feelings, her faith in herself, to look for the things he doesn’t see.

“I don’t know,” she says, slowly and with as much honesty as she can. “But I do know that I’ll never be able to heal if I have to cling to him at every step.”

He frowns. “You might...”

“No.” As she speaks, she finds a little more strength. “He can’t hold my hand through everything, Monkey. At some point, you... _we_ are just going to have to trust that I’m whole enough to heal myself. Or if I’m not, that it’s something we can deal with together. You and me and...” Her voice cracks with too much emotion. “And Tripitaka.”

Monkey quirks a brow, noting the obvious absent name. “Just the three of us?”

“No. Not...” Sandy swallows, feeling suddenly sick; she lets her gaze fall on Pigsy’s sweat-drenched face, all the way at the back of the group, and with every ounce of courage she has in her, she says, “The _four_ of us.”

“Good.” He tries to smile, but it doesn’t come any easier to him than it has to her. “Look, I get it. You don’t want to be dependent on a demon for the rest of your life. Don’t want to have to haul him around everywhere you go like a bag of healing herbs. But if this comes back...”

He trails off, biting his lip, like he thinks he’ll make it happen just by saying it might.

Sandy sighs. She wishes she could find a little of Tripitaka’s optimism now, wishes she could take him by the hand like their monk would and promise that it won’t happen, that she’s mended and better and will be fine. Wants to be all the things Tripitaka has been from the beginning, all the things Sandy resented her for, unwilling to accept the very real possibility of exactly this.

But she is not Tripitaka. She’s been struggling against this fear for too long to deny it now, and she would not insult either one of them by pretending she can.

“I don’t know,” she says, with honesty that burns. “I’m afraid too. More than you, I think. But I can’t... I _won’t_ bind the Shaman to me for the rest of our lives. Even if would be a fitting punishment for his crimes.” 

Amusing to think of it that way: a demon made to warp and bend the mind of gods, devoting the rest of his existence to holding one together. Monkey chuckles his approval. “It would be, you know.”

“Perhaps,” Sandy concedes. “But I won’t do it. Not to him and not to myself. If I’m still not whole or well enough, if I’m still not able to heal myself after everything I endured to get this far, so be it. Let me stay broken, if broken is what I have to be. But he has done enough. Okay?” And she takes his hands, looks him right in the eye. “Let him go.”

He studies her for a long, long moment before he tries to speak again, worry and a carefully-suppressed sort of admiration spilling like sunlight across his face. He understands better than anyone, she thinks, what it’s like to have unpleasant things locked away in his head, to have demons playing around in there, moving things around and twisting them, trying to turn him into something else.

Finally, in a low, reverent sort of voice, he says, “You’re braver than I would’ve been.”

“No,” Sandy says. “Just lived with it for longer. Even when I didn’t remember, even when I didn’t know or understand what was happening to me, it was there. Pushing at me, grinding against my insides, making me feel wrong and confused and mad. Every moment, every minute, always. I’ve lived with it for almost my whole life, and I am tired. That’s all. Not brave, not strong. Not anything. Just so, so _tired_.”

He doesn’t argue, but his frown deepens a little. “Yeah, well, now you don’t have to be. ’Cause it’s over, it’s done, it’s finished.”

“Yes.” A single small syllable, but it means so much. She holds it close, wears it like armour. “Yes, it is. And if it does happen again, I have to be able to endure it on my own. I can’t live like this for the rest of my life. Scared, tired, clinging to a demon, dependent on him to keep my heart beating. I have to learn to breathe on my own.”

He nods, keeps his head bowed. “Right. And if it does... I mean, if you can’t...” His throat convulses, but he doesn’t back down. “We’ll find a way. The four of us, right? We’ll find a way to kick its ass.” And without warning, he swings his staff at her head, just close enough that she has to bring up her scythe to parry. “It’s what we do.”

His point made, he shrinks his staff and slips it back into his hair. Sandy watches him with a small smile, but she doesn’t lower her scythe. Feels a little safer, holding it like that; she spent so much of her time in Palawa without it, not trusting herself near anything sharp or dangerous, barely trusting herself at all. Now she is well, or better than she was, having it back in her hands is like a part of her waking up again. _Herself_ , a piece of it she didn’t know was missing.

“I suppose it is,” she murmurs, thoughtful and just a little distant.

Monkey nods, then grows very serious. “Okay,” he says, just a little shakily. “Next time we take a break, I’ll tell the Shaman he can go.”

And he turns his face away so she won’t see the conflict in his eyes.

She does, though. Even with the sun dazzling her, leaving her blind, she sees everything.

But she has learned enough by now to pretend she doesn’t.

*

It’s a few more hours before they take a break.

The moment comes naturally, easily, as it always did before. They find their way into a small shaded clearing, perfect for catching their breath, and settle in by mutual, unspoken agreement, without anyone needing to say a word. A strange, unexpected change from their previous journey, every rest-stop a source of unpleasantness for everyone, Sandy’s mind and body splitting at the seams, exhaustion hanging over the group like a burial shroud.

Not so this time. Now they stop because it’s convenient, because they’ll have to eventually and they have found a good place. No more, no less. 

They’re all in relatively good spirits as they settle themselves down. Not even Pigsy has uttered so much as a word of complaint; he’s been content to trail along at the back of the group, as unfit and worn out as ever, but seemingly content to carry on without protest. Like he thinks he can atone for his sins if he can just exhaust himself enough.

He can’t, though. It doesn’t work that way. Sandy, who still finds herself trapped sometimes in the body of her feral, animal self, knows that all too well.

She still keeps a distance from him once they stop, watching uneasily from Tripitaka’s side as he unwraps a handful of little cakes — stolen, no doubt, from the tavern — and passes them around. He’s careful, mindful of her body language, and hands hers to Tripitaka instead. Sits himself down on the far side of the clearing, isolated from the rest of them, and eats in silence.

Sandy appreciates that, more than words can say.

Appreciates the cake, too, not that she’d ever say so. It’s been a long time since she could eat without feeling sick or scared or both. She can still taste Monica’s kindness in the crumbs, the tickling echo of her younger self, but it’s less profound now she’s not _there_ , now that there’s no fear of looking up and seeing one dark eye looking back at her, forced sternness smothering a smile.

Routine, like the Shaman said. Routine and exercise and distance from all the things, large and small, that pressed on her memories like a pulsing, throbbing headache. Here, she is again what she was before: just a god on a quest, surrounded by her friends, her new family.

She feels full when she’s finished eating, comfortable and sort of content. Any one of those things would be a miracle, but all of them together is so impossible she very nearly cries. Fullness, happiness, and warmth.

For a short while, it is glorious. The quiet, the tranquillity, the sense of being _normal_ , if only in something as simple as this. Sitting on the grass, catching her breath, recovering from nothing more insidious than too much walking. Tripitaka beside her, one arm draped across her shoulders, the other resting lazily on her thigh, her face bathed in the early afternoon sunlight, flushed and bright and so—

 _Beautiful_.

And for as long as she is looking at her, Sandy finds she can’t breathe. Can’t, and doesn’t want to. Because she is here and her mind is clear and whole, no pressure and no pain, nothing to do but gaze at Tripitaka and bask in her beauty.

Doesn’t need an anchor. Doesn’t need a tether. Doesn’t—

Doesn’t _need_ anything.

Just wants. And has. And that is the most precious feeling she has ever known.

And it is in the middle of all this — peace, tranquillity, and the closest thing to contentment Sandy has felt in days — that the Shaman clears his throat and, for the first time since they left Palawa, speaks.

“You are aware,” he says to Monkey, “that I can hear your every thought?”

And just like that, the moment shatters.

Monkey’s whole body goes rigid, tight as a whip and even more deadly. He looks up from his half-eaten cake, eyes flashing fire, and for a brief but terrifying moment Sandy is absolutely convinced he’s going to draw his staff and throw himself at the Shaman.

He doesn’t, though, and the fear sputters out even as the fire in his eyes grows hotter. “What did I say,” he growls, “about the eavesdropping thing?”

“It can hardly be called ‘eavesdropping’,” the Shaman retorts calmly, “when your thoughts are loud enough for anyone to hear.”

Monkey doesn’t seem to have a riposte to that. He struggles nearly as hard as Sandy does with even the most basic emotions, and these are far more complex than most. He could no more keep himself from broadcasting his unhappiness than he can hold his anger and frustration down when they swell and surge and swallow him.

“Whatever,” he huffs, conceding the point with a sour look. “So what am I thinking, then, smartass?”

The Shaman thins his lips. Ponderous, like he’s not sure how much he should say of what he knows. Like he’s trying, for once in his life, to be tactful.

“That you wish to see me gone,” he says, after a moment. “That a part of you would like to keep me here but knows it can’t. That yet another part of you wishes it could have locked me up in that pestilent village so that I might face judgement for what I did to you.”

All true, Sandy knows; he said as much to her earlier. And to his credit, Monkey does not deny it. “You’d deserve it,” he says instead, quite simply. “Judgement, punishment. A great big gallows for your great big head.”

The Shaman tilts his head; he won’t deny his truths either.

“Indeed,” he says. “I make no secret of my past deeds. What would be the point; you were all there. Some as witnesses, others as participants, but there is not one among you who was not touched by my attempts to break you.” He speaks without shame, but there is an odd sort of softness in him when he looks at Monkey, respect and just a touch of remorse. “Perhaps I might have chosen a different path, had I known you then as I do now. But that, of course, is academic. I did not know you, nor did I wish to. I was tasked with a job, and I performed it to the best of my ability.”

“Not well enough,” Monkey sneers. “We’re still here, aren’t we?”

The Shaman narrows his eyes; the flicker of sentiment vanishes. “What’s done is done,” he presses tightly. “You would have behaved no differently, were our positions reversed. None of you.”

Monkey shakes his head, emphatic and angry. “None of _us_ would’ve accepted a job that involved breaking people’s minds in the first pl—”

The words die in his throat, cut off like a scream as as his eyes land on Pigsy.

Feeling suddenly violently ill, Sandy swallows hard. She wants to run away, to hide from this conversation, but there’s nowhere to go.

The Shaman quirks a triumphant eyebrow, pleased to see his point made so effectively. “Indeed,” he says, pointed but without spite. “Your merry little band already has one fallen monster in need of redemption. There is hardly room for another, even if I were inclined to stay with you and seek it.”

“Which you’re not,” Monkey fills in, voice rising into a strange sharpness. “Well, _good_. We didn’t want you sticking around anyway.”

“A senseless lie.” His face betrays no emotion, as usual, but still Sandy has a suspicion he’s forcing back something rather powerful. “As I said before, your thoughts are loud enough to drown out the birdsong.”

Monkey makes a strangled sound, like he’s trying to laugh, failing, and choking on it.

“You think I’ll _miss_ you?” He makes the same sound again, even worse than before, then cocks his head in Sandy’s direction. “If you believe that, you’re even crazier than her.”

That hurts. A lot. Despite her best efforts to hide it, Sandy flinches.

Tripitaka, ever present, ever aware of her emotional needs, strokes the backs of her fingers. Tethering, anchoring, keeping her grounded. If she could find her voice right now, Sandy would whisper her thanks.

“Monkey.” Hard and jagged, uncharacteristic for Tripitaka. It’s a warning. “You can lash out all you want if that’s what you need to make this easier. But don’t you dare aim it at h— at _us_.”

Careful, very careful, ‘us’ not ‘her’. Makes the insult less personal. Not just because it’s Sandy, because she’s fragile and volatile and too sensitive to such things, but because she’s one of them, part of an ‘us’, because she’s his friend and he shouldn’t speak about his friends in such a way. Another senseless lie, but one borne from good intentions. Sandy will accept it, if only because it comes from Tripitaka.

Monkey grunts a half-hearted apology, but otherwise ignores them. Sandy can feel the tension rising in him, emotion and the need to suppress and ignore and deny it. He’ll do far worse damage, and not only to her, if he’s left unchecked.

She stands up. Swallows down her self-consciousness, the part of her that still reacts so viscerally to the idea of her own madness, that hears the word ‘crazy’ and longs to hide itself away from the world and everyone in it. Old, old instincts, much older than the damage in her head.

“He’s not the only one whose thoughts are loud,” she says to the Shaman. Quiet, calm, as steady as she can make herself. “I think a part of you would very much like to stay with us. But you’re afraid of what it would mean: a demon choosing the company of gods. You would be taking sides in a war, becoming an enemy to your own people. It’s very frightening.”

Speaking up for the first time since they stopped, Pigsy takes a deep breath and murmurs, “Not something I’d recommend.”

“Your input is most welcome,” the Shaman sneers, in a tone that makes it clear he means exactly the opposite. “Both of you.”

“There are other paths, you know,” Tripitaka says. She’s still sitting, but somehow her presence looms larger than the rest of them all put together. “You could help the gods you broke. Bring them back to themselves, help to repair their minds like you helped Sandy... at least, the ones that can still be saved. Use your powers to heal instead of harm. Isn’t that what you kept saying when you were stitching her mind back together?”

“I said that for her benefit,” the Shaman snaps, like the very concept is a terrible slight. “To keep her calm, to prevent her from panicking when I made contact. To make my labour simpler. Not from some inexplicable desire to turn my talents to the healing arts, I assure you.”

“But you could do that,” Sandy says, very softly. “If you chose to.”

“And if I choose not to?” He’s angry, but not nearly as much as he wants to be; she’s seen enough of his fury in the time they’ve worked together to recognise the difference. “Would you hunt me down, then? Slaughter me?”

Monkey shows all his teeth. “Just give us a reason, eyelashes.”

“No,” Tripitaka says, silencing him with a hard look. “We have our own quest, and we’ve been away from it for too long already. Whatever you decide to do after this, the choice is entirely your own. We won’t seek you out.”

“You have no master now,” Sandy points out. It’s not something he’d like to be reminded of, she knows, but it is important just the same. “Not Davari. Certainly not us. You can do whatever you feel is... is right.”

 _Right_. Such a heavy word, from a god to a demon, and it hangs ominously on the air. The Shaman recoils a little as it strikes him, like the idea is a physical thing, blunt but powerful, and he seems to take a moment to analyse it from all angles, making a study of it. _Right_ , and what it means to somebody who was created with no definition of the word.

He hums to himself, sober and contemplative, and says, “I suppose there is a certain measure of satisfaction to be drawn from repairing minds rather than breaking them.” He casts an appraising eye over Sandy as he speaks, and she can feel his consciousness pressing on the bruised edges of her own. “Yours may very well be my greatest masterpiece.”

Sandy has no idea if it’s supposed to be a compliment or not, but she tries to take it as one. “Um. Thank you?”

He tilts his head a little, but doesn’t acknowledge the moment any further. “I make no promises,” he says instead, to all of them. “As I’m sure you’re well aware, it can be... challenging... to resist our instincts, even if we truly wish to.”

Doesn’t say the words he’s thinking, but it’s not difficult to read the subtext in the ones he does say: he’s still not sure if he _does_ want to.

Sandy understands that, even if it tastes a little bitter after everything they’ve been through together. His acts of kindness and compassion caused him a great deal of suffering; she can hardly blame him for not wanting to commit to more of the same. Still, watching him now, eyes downcast and mouth drawn tight in contemplation, she finds that she has hope even so.

“I’m sure you’ll find a path that suits you,” she says quietly.

“Indeed.” He allows a smile. Guarded and thread-thin, but a smile just the same. It transforms his face into something new, something that might one day grow warm, if it can find the right kind of light. “And you are welcome.”

He turns, then, as if to leave. Slow, though, and sort of deliberate, like he’s waiting for—

“ _Good_.” Monkey, surging forward like a tidal wave; his anger is tremulous now, even less convincing than it was a moment ago. “So go, then. Get lost. We’re done with you.”

He stands there, fists trembling at his sides as the Shaman turns back to face him. He’s still smiling, but it’s different now, not warm but carrying an odd sort of intimacy even so. A strange sort of smile, one with more shades of subtlety than Sandy can count, perhaps more than she can understand. Hard to tell if they’re too subtle for Monkey, but something in his expression says they’re not. Like maybe they were only ever meant to be understood by him, not her or anyone else.

Interesting.

“Oh?” the Shaman presses, sauntering forward until they’re face-to-face, a little too close. “No fond farewell from the great Monkey King? No goodbye hug? No token of affection to remember you by?”

Monkey snarls. Stands there, twitching and scowling, fury and frustration and a few other things as well, and for a breathless moment Sandy is convinced he’s going to lash out at him.

He looks tempted, incredibly so, but only for a moment. And then—

Then, moving like he’s possessed, he snatches one of the Shaman’s hands in both of his, and holds on like he never wants to let go.

“If I ever see your stupid face again,” he says hoarsely, “I swear I’ll...”

Doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to, apparently. The Shaman chuckles, low and sort of secretive, and clasps Monkey’s shoulder with his free hand. Sandy’s no expert in parting rituals — or rituals of any kind, in truth — but it doesn’t look like any farewell she has ever seen; something in the way they stand, the way they gaze at each other, feigning hatred without ever trying to pull apart, makes the moment seem almost like an embrace.

Finally, after a long, weighted silence, the Shaman steps back. His expression hasn’t changed at all, but the shadows behind his pale demon’s eyes are softer than Sandy has ever seen them.

“Indeed,” he says, smiling privately as he turns away. “I look forward to it.”

And with a one last dramatic flourish, he waves a hand and disappears for good.

*

They start moving again pretty quickly after that.

Monkey is understandably edgy, his impatience flaring and spreading like a wildfire. He’s readying their things almost before the dust has settled where the Shaman’s feet were, muttering that they’ve wasted enough time on stupid sentimentality.

Pigsy doesn’t argue; he’s so willing to do whatever brings the most peace that he doesn’t even ask for time to finish his snack. Tripitaka doesn’t say anything either, but Sandy can tell she’s just as eager to get back to the quest. After such an exhausting detour, who could blame her for wanting a return to what is simple?

For her part, Sandy is just grateful to put a little bit of distance between herself and the scorched ring of grass where the Shaman made his departure. She doesn’t like the reminder that she’s alone now, and so too are the scars in her head.

She can still feel them inside of her, like the sandpaper-roughness of too-dry skin or the throbbing pain in her bones when they pass through large areas with no water. It’s more frightening than she thought it would be, feeling the paved-over places inside herself and knowing that it falls on her to tend them now, that there’s no-one left to catch her and keep her safe if she falls.

At least walking is less difficult now than it was the last time they did this. No need for constant distraction, no need to keep her thoughts empty or her mind clear. She walks, putting one foot in front of the other without thought or effort, and it is simple and easy and _normal_ , the way it always should have been.

They’ve only been walking a little while when she notices Tripitaka looking at her. Eyes dark but glimmering, they catch the sunlight and throw it back into Sandy’s face; it is a strange, confusing thing, looking at her and seeing something other than worry. She looks almost like she’s—

 _Smiling_.

Sandy blinks.

“Did I do something amusing?” It comes out a little sharp, a little defensive; she doesn’t mean it to, but her voice has always been the hardest part of her to control. “You’ve not smiled like that for a while.”

Tripitaka’s smile only seems to widen at her bristling. “No,” she says, fond and light as the air. “Nothing amusing.”

She touches Sandy’s hip, pulls her in her a little closer, seemingly just because she can. The intimacy is startling, and all the more so because it’s become so familiar, and Sandy finds that her body no longer reacts to it at all.

“Then what?”

“Nothing.” For the first time in entirely too long, the word doesn’t feel like a hidden secret. “It’s just... you’re not struggling so much any more. It’s nice to see.”

Sandy isn’t sure the observation is truly accurate. She has always struggled, her whole life, with everything. It hasn’t stopped just because her mind is whole; she’s just gone back to the way she was before. Invisible, struggling with things that people like Tripitaka don’t see or even think about.

It’s the way it should be, she supposes. Some things are worth burdening the people she cares about, some struggles so heavy and so awful that they can’t be faced without help. Others, perhaps, are better kept safely out of sight, hidden in the shadows that once made a home.

So she tucks them away, the hundreds of little struggles that come with being alive, looks down at Tripitaka, and wills her smile to shine bright.

“Thank you,” she says. “It’s good to see you looking happy as well. Not enough of that in recent days. And that’s my fault, so...” She swallows, feeling suddenly ashamed and self-conscious and painfully weak. “If I can be the reason you do, and not just the reason you don’t...”

She stops, shaking her head. Doesn’t want to think too hard about how much of a burden she is, how much more progress Monkey and Tripitaka would have if she hadn’t insisted on joining them on the quest.

Tripitaka sighs softly, and the smile drains from her face. Her fingers dig into the bone at Sandy’s hip, gripping a little bit tighter, the contact like a promise: _burden or not, I’m not going to let you go again_.

“You’re always going to be both,” she says aloud, with such tenderness that Sandy’s heart feels bruised just from hearing it. “The reason I smile in moments like this, and the reason I don’t in... in moments like _that_. That’s the way it should be. The way I want it to be.”

“Not the way _I_ want it to be,” Sandy mutters. “There’s so much of me that is like _that_ , Tripitaka. Broken or damaged or just... wrong. Madness or animal wildness or worse, and I don’t... I don’t want you to hurt for me any more. I don’t want you to feel...”

“I know you don’t.” She takes her hands, both of them, and holds on tight. “But I do. I want to share your pain, Sandy, and your damage, and your...” A deep, unsubtle breath, and her jaw pales. “Your madness. Every part of you, all of it. I want your joy to bring me joy, your peace to bring me peace... and I want your pain to bring me pain, too. I don’t want you to hide those things from me, I don’t want to feel empty when you’re hurting. If you suffer and I feel nothing, how would that make me any better than Locke?”

Sandy stares at her for a few moments, thrown and disoriented. She doesn’t know what to say. Thinks and feels so much, but she has no idea whether she should voice any of those things or not. She’s never had someone invest so much of themselves in her before, someone who would open up their heart and soul, who would walk through the twisted corners of her mind, witness her worst traumas and darkest deeds, and not want to run away. Someone who would see all of those things, the worst and the darkest, and still somehow want more.

“It’s my duty to protect you,” she manages. “Even from me.”

 _Especially from me,_ she means, but she can’t bring herself to say that part.

“No.” Tripitaka pulls her hands free, tender and very careful, and points at the distant horizon. “It’s your duty to protect me from what we face out there. Demons, monsters, whatever else. But the part of me that cares about you, the part of me that wants to share your joy and your pain and all the rest of it... Sandy, that’s _mine_. You don’t get to take it away just because you’re afraid of sharing yourself.”

Sandy opens her mouth to protest, to insist that this is something else entirely, but the look on Tripitaka’s face stops her before she can start, makes her weak and small all over again.

“Not _afraid_ ,” she mutters sullenly, and it’s nothing like what she wants to say. “Not of... of that.”

“Yes, you are.” Said gently, but with a kind of sorrow that makes her ache inside. “You’re afraid that if you open yourself up truly and completely, if you let me see all of you, I’ll turn around and leave. Abandon you. Because that’s what always happens when you share a piece of yourself, isn’t it? You open yourself up, you spill out your insides, all your pain and your grief and your trauma... and then, before you even draw a breath, you’re standing on the side of the road, alone.”

The words land like a blow, like a dozen blows. Like a lifetime of blows, and the never-healing bruises they’ve left in their wake.

“Yes,” she manages, a ragged whisper that grates against the raw nerves in her throat. “Yes, that’s what happens. Again and again and again, every single time. There is so much of me, Tripitaka, so much, and it is so vast and so terrible, and you can’t imagine, you can’t, you—”

“I’ve already seen it.” Her voice breaks. “Your pain, your trauma, your wildness, your hunger, all of it. I’ve seen everything, Sandy, even the parts you didn’t know existed. There’s nothing left for you to hide any more. Nothing I haven’t seen, nothing that we haven’t seen and endured and suffered together. I know it, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen _you_ , all of you. I’ve seen you and I know you, and I’m still here.”

Sandy feels like she’s being pulled apart. Not like her mind, shattered and fractured and broken into pieces, but like a gnarled and knotted mess of a thing, picked apart and untangled, like Tripitaka is trying to cut away the frayed and tattered threads, to unravel the _something_ buried and hidden underneath. And it is terrifying, because Sandy has no idea what that something is, what it looks like or whether it ought to be unleashed in the first place. She has been tangled and strangled for so long, countless little broken parts all knotted together, she doesn’t know what will become of her when the knots are gone and the thing that’s left is solid and strong and whole.

But Tripitaka pulls those things apart like it’s simple, like Sandy is simple too; she separates the threads and reconnects them, making them into something a little less frayed and tattered, like she knows and has always known exactly what that _something_ is supposed to be, like she only has to look at Sandy to see and know everything.

And it is terrifying, being so thoroughly seen and known, being so thoroughly understood by another living soul, and even more when she still knows so little of herself, when there is so little she can offer in return. A fleeting smile, vanished too fast, a moment of calm in the middle of a raging tempest. It is nothing; _she_ is nothing. But Tripitaka, who is everything, still looks at her like that’s enough.

Sandy takes a deep breath, swallows hard, and tries to speak.

“The Shaman,” she says, slow and unsteady. “He said that I’m afraid of myself. More than any demon, any monster, even my past pain. And he’s right: of all the things I’ve known, even the terrible traumas we woke up inside me, nothing is more frightening than _myself_. And he’s right that it’s a problem, that I need to learn how to... how to not feel that way. But I don’t know how.”

“I don’t know either,” Tripitaka admits. She squeezes Sandy’s hands, looks her in the eye, and does not let her pull away. “But I do know that you’ll never find the answer by hiding yourself away from the people who love you.”

It feels like such a big word, _love_ , like a vast, endless sea filled with monsters and wonders both. But it also feels so small, so insignificant, like a quietly lurking thing, always there but unseen.

Sandy swallows. The word, yes, and the truth behind it: that she cannot hide from the things that frighten her, that she cannot be what Tripitaka deserves if she can’t even look herself in the eye.

“I suppose, then,” she says, feeling vulnerable and loved, “that I’m going to need you to be my anchor for a while longer.”

Tripitaka laughs. Delicate and fragile, a sound like water flowing over broken glass; it goes on and on, and when she’s done she lifts herself up and takes Sandy’s face in her hands. She meets her gaze, and Sandy watches her pale reflection tremble and glimmer in Tripitaka’s dark, depthless eyes. Seen through them, she thinks, _herself_ doesn’t look quite so terrifying.

“I can do that,” Tripitaka says, achingly soft.

And then she leans up and up, and seals the promise with a kiss.

*

They travel for the rest of the day, not stopping until the sun goes down.

Monkey leads the way, storming ahead by himself, his long strides and under-the-breath muttering making it quite clear that he wants to be left alone. Given his complicated feelings about the Shaman and his general broodiness since their departure, it’s not exactly a surprise. Experience has taught them all that he’ll be back to his usual self by the time they stop for the night, but while they’re travelling he’s a cloud on the horizon, rumbling threats at anyone who tries to move closer.

Pigsy, as always, sticks to the rear, lagging behind the rest of them by a dozen paces or more. It’s so typical of him that the gesture might be invisible, but Sandy can’t help noticing on the few occasions she glances back that he’s not nearly as breathless as normal, and his usual complaints are noticeably absent. Where he would usually be the loudest among them, begging for a break every hour or so, today he is utterly silent; even Sandy speaks more than he does, and she’s known for being quiet and thoughtful.

She and Tripitaka don’t talk very much either, but still more than the others. Tripitaka is affectionate and a little clingy; she knows by now to keep from asking questions like ‘are you okay?’ and ‘how are you feeling?’, but she’s spent so much time worrying over the last few days — and Sandy has spent so much time needing it — that she seems to have forgotten how to engage with her without an undercurrent of anxiety and nervousness.

It’s almost comforting, then, when the sun finally starts to go down, a blaze of orange that sets the horizon on fire, blinding them and bathing the world in fading light.

Monkey turns around at long last, facing them with stiff shoulders. “We should make camp,” he says, casual and careless, like he hasn’t been counting the minutes, like they can’t see how ragged his breathing is. “It’ll be dark soon.”

No-one protests. They’ve been travelling hard and fast, trying to outrun the shadows stretching out behind them — real and metaphorical — and though none of them will ever admit it out loud, they’re all pretty exhausted from the effort.

The nightly routine is familiar by now, if a little strained by lack of practice after so long in a civilised place. Pigsy rummages through their things for his cooking supplies, aided as usual by absolutely no-one; meanwhile, Tripitaka gives Sandy’s hand a quick squeeze, fleeting but full of warmth, then excuses herself to forage for firewood.

Monkey, somewhat uncharacteristically, does not offer to go with her. Instead, he shuffles his feet for about half a minute, then looks Sandy squarely in the eye and says, “I’m going to hit something. Wanna volunteer?”

Sandy thinks about it for less than the time it took Monkey to ask. For the first time in entirely too long she finds she doesn’t need the violence; her head is quieter than it has been in days, her thoughts as close to tranquil as they ever seem to get. But Monkey has given so much of himself to her through moments like this, saved her again and again when she needed it most; it’s the least she can do to give a little something back now that he’s the one in need.

She lifts her scythe, readjusts her centre of gravity, and shows her teeth. Not a smile — she’s still not ready for that, even when she’s calm — but a sharp-edged threat she knows he’ll relish.

“I hope you’re not still distracted,” she says, testing the weight of her weapon. “Because I’m not feeling so generous now.”

He laughs, harsh and just a little hungry, and the sound resonates in perfect rhythm with the wild thing inside of her, the animal instincts always so close to the surface.

“Lucky for you,” he says, extending his staff, “neither am I.”

And he takes a long, menacing step forward, never breaking eye-contact.

And she is ready for the moment his staff comes flying at the side of her head, and he is ready for the moment she blocks, the clang of metal on metal, the impact of their bodies coming together, and—

And they _fight_.

And it is nothing like the times they fought before, shards of pain and rage smashing against each other inside Sandy’s head, making her clumsy and savage, desperate for a moment’s quiet, a moment’s control. She doesn’t need it now like she did then, but now she has it she finds she rather likes it. A moment of something private, something that’s just theirs, her and Monkey, something the others might understand on some level, but never the way they do.

 _Theirs_.

Just like the moments she shares with Tripitaka, stolen kisses and whispered promises, soft blushes and warm touches and love, love, love. These moments wear very different colours to those ones, shades of black and blue all bathed in a haze of red, but they hold just as much meaning, and they’re no less precious for being so brutal.

And while it lasts, it is so, so beautiful. The world dissolves around her, around them, and she doesn’t need to breathe it in like she did before, doesn’t need to hold on tight for fear it will disappear, doesn’t need to do anything at all. She can close her eyes and become a part of it, relish the physicality, the strange sensation of being well and whole, strong and solid, of the way her body listens to her, the way her mind responds without even trying to think. It has been so long since she could do anything without pain, but this... _this_ is effortless.

While it lasts.

But like all good things, at least all good things that find her, it ends.

She’s just parried a body-shaking blow from Monkey’s staff, the clang of iron on steel still ringing through her bones, when it hits her: a wave of something so powerful and so familiar that it stops her in her tracks.

It’s intangible, nameless, and it sets every nerve in her body alight; for a moment she can’t make sense of it at all, can’t figure out which one of her senses is reacting, which part of her feels it. It overwhelms her, the scythe clattering to the ground like her arms have gone numb, like her whole body has, every part, everything except—

She turns. Blinks. Sees—

Pigsy, crouching thoughtfully over a newly-stoked fire, humming to himself as he labours over the evening meal. Steam rising from the pot, the smell of vegetables and spices and—

And Sandy feels the world start to tilt and bend around her.

It doesn’t frighten her. Not this time. But the familiarity is a physical, all-consuming thing; it wraps itself around her and it takes her heart into its hands and it squeezes until she—

She touches her face, finds it wet with tears.

She staggers, not really off-balance but enough that but Monkey leaps in like he’s afraid she’ll fall, supporting her with his shoulders, his arms, his hands.

“Is it happening again?” he asks, and the fear in his voice is a blessing and a curse all at once.

Sandy shakes her head. Finds her balance again, heels digging into the soft dirt. Musters a smile, and steps away from him. Her body sways, moving of its own accord, carrying her like she’s in a dream, or perhaps—

A memory.

She kneels in front of Pigsy, in front of the cooking pot, the familiar smell, the memory of its taste on her tongue, the fading echo of a moment where she was wanted, where she was _safe_.

“That’s...” She swallows more tears. “That’s Monica’s broth.”

Pigsy grins. Guarded, a bit nervous, but with infinite warmth.

“Yeah.” He scratches the back of his neck, somewhere between pleased and embarrassed. “Wasn’t sure if I was getting it right. But, uh, going by the look on your face, I’m guessing I am?”

“You are.” Her voice is thick, choked with emotion. “How?”

He breathes out slowly, still a little nervous, then hands the cooking spoon over to Tripitaka. “You keep that stuff simmering, yeah?”

“Uh...” Tripitaka turns the spoon over in her hands, like she’s afraid it’s going to jump up and bite her. “Sure. How hard can it be?”

Pigsy rolls his eyes, but keeps his thoughts to himself. Sensible, probably; he’s still on thin ice with all three of them. He stands without another word, joints creaking with the effort of it, and waves for Sandy to follow.

They find a mostly-private corner, a little way away from the rest of their camp. Far enough not to be overheard, close enough to come running if needed. Good enough, Sandy supposes, though she can’t quite swallow down a reflexive pulse of fear, a staccato rhythm hammering against her ribcage. She hasn’t been alone with him since they talked back in Palawa; apparently there’s still a little part of her that feels unsafe.

He’s mindful of that, though. Careful, considerate, more so than he’s ever been before. He lets her keep as much distance as she likes, doesn’t try to touch her or move closer, and when he speaks he keeps his voice hushed and gentle.

Sandy doesn’t sit down. Her heart feels like it’s about to burst out of her chest. Unable to make eye-contact, she looks past his shoulder and asks, again, “How?”

He sighs, pulls a crumpled piece of parchment out of his pocket, and waves it in front of him like a white flag.

“Monica gave me the recipe,” he explains quietly. “Before we left. I mean, if you can call it a recipe, really. It’s just...” He gestures vaguely with his free hand, feigning carelessness. “I mean, seriously, it’s just vegetables and spices. No idea why she thought I’d need a bloody recipe, but there it is.”

Sandy tries to ignore his rambling. “She gave that to you?” she manages. Her voice pitches and trembles, slurring like she’s drunk; she doesn’t know whether to be angry or upset or frightened or touched. “ _You_?”

“Who else would she have given it to?” he asks, with patience and compassion. “Everyone knows I’m the only one of us who can handle a spoon, right?”

“True,” Sandy concedes, getting her voice back under control. “But still. I don’t...”

“Well, you know Monica.” He takes an unsteady breath, so heavy with emotion it’s a miracle the air makes it into his lungs. “I guess she thought... I guess she wanted to send a little part of her along with us. With you, I mean. Wanted to be there, in the only way she can.”

Sandy’s vision is blurred with tears. She tries to swallow, but her throat is clogged too, and she can’t seem to catch her breath.

“That...” She feels like a child again, small and fragile but, for once, not scared. “That was very thoughtful of her.”

“Yeah.” Still smiling, sort of, but it’s sad and a little fractured, like the places in her mind that have been fused back together, a little scarred and a little scratched; he’s tearful now too, and he doesn’t try to hide it. “And, uh... I was thinking...”

Sandy swallows. Her throat feels like it’s full of rocks. “That’s not something you do very often.”

She’s not sure if she’s really there yet, the old familiar place where they can defuse tension with humour — or try, at least — but Pigsy is trying so hard to make this right; it’s only fair that she make a little effort too, some small gesture to show that she understands and appreciates what he’s doing. The jibe falls predictably flat, her voice trembling too much to really sell it, but at least it’s there. An attempt, if only a small one, at becoming something closer to what they were.

He snorts, a laugh as shaky as his smile, but at least he’s trying. They both are. Trying and failing, but trying just the same. It matters.

“I was _thinking_ ,” he says again, rolling his eyes, “if you’re still... uh, that is, if you still... I mean, uh...”

He trails off, like he genuinely believes that counts as a coherent sentence. Sandy furrows her brow, trying to make sense of the words between the ‘uh’s and the ‘if’s, without success. She has trouble enough making sense of her own thoughts, most of time; she’s no more talented at interpreting other people’s.

“You...” She bites her lip, then gives up and shakes her head. “Pigsy. My mind may be back in one piece, relatively speaking, but it can’t work miracles. Please use your words.”

This time, when he laughs, it comes out stronger, more sincere. Unsurprising, Sandy supposes wryly, that she only manages to be humorous when she’s not trying to be.

“Cooking,” he says, a hasty splutter that turns the word into a single syllable, blurted-out and sort of frantic. “If you still want to learn how to cook, I figured... you know, uh, that stuff is easy to make. Like, really, really easy. It’d be a good place for anyone to start learning. Even someone as hopeless as...” He stops, clearing his throat. “I mean... that is... no offence.”

“None taken.” For once, she means it. She has many failings, many weaknesses, and she is acutely aware of them all; living the life she did, she could probably fill a book with all the things she can’t do. But next to things like making eye-contact or understanding basic social cues, things that the others can do without so much as a thought, being unable to cook is hardly worth mentioning. “You were merely stating the obvious. If I wasn’t hopeless, I wouldn’t need your help in the first place.”

“Uh, yeah. Fair point, I guess.” He coughs, then presses swiftly on. “Anyway. This stuff is pretty bland, but apparently you liked it a lot back when you were a kid. And that...” He cuts himself off, looking suddenly uncomfortable. Neither one of them is ready to talk about that yet, and he knows better than to try. “So I thought you might want to learn how to make it for yourself. You know, just in case...” His throat convulses as he swallows; it seems to shake his whole body. “In case you ever need it again.”

Sandy’s breath stalls in her chest. There is so much to process in all of that, so much hurting and healing all at once, and so much _feeling_. She doesn’t know where to begin.

“Pigsy.” The name comes out hoarse, dangerously close to a sob. She wishes their relationship was mended enough that she could do that, cry in front of him and let him give her comfort. It would heal them both, she knows, but she can’t. Not yet. “Pigsy, I...”

“Yeah.” His hands twitch at his sides. He must sense what she’s feeling, but still he doesn’t even try to reach for her; that is more touching than any physical contact could ever be. “Listen, I... I can’t make it right. Any of it. You know that, and so do I. I can’t wave my hand and make my apologies mean anything. I can’t take back what happened to you, can’t pretend it wasn’t my fault, can’t take away the thing it turned you into. It’s done, it’s over, and I can’t... I wish I could, but I _can’t_...”

“I know.” She wets her lips, aching all over. “I know all of this.”

“No, you don’t. I’d do anything to take it back, okay? _Anything_. Even take it all onto myself, if that’s what it took. But I can’t. And this... _this_... it’s all I’ve got. I can’t make it easier for you, but I can try and help you learn how to do it for yourself. Help you learn how to... how to hold on to the good stuff, the stuff you had before I came along and screwed it all up. And even if it never gets better, even if you never feel safe again, maybe... maybe I can help you recreate a little moment when you did.”

Sandy doesn’t know what to say. Wouldn’t, she’s sure, even if she was any good at talking in general. She doubts even Tripitaka would know what to say to a revelation like this.

So, for a time, struck numb and dumb with too much feeling, she only stares at him and struggles not to cry.

Then, at long last, moving slowly and using every ounce of courage she has in her, everything she’s become through Tripitaka’s faith, Monkey’s strength, the Shaman’s compassion, she reaches out, and takes his hand.

“I think...” she whispers, shaking all over. “I think I’d like that.”

*

They go back to camp together.

Tripitaka looks up as they approach, breaking into a smile at the sight of them, like she can sense the quiet understanding just from the looks on their faces. By some miracle, she’s kept the broth in one piece, the smell just as potent and memory-inducing as it was when they left; Sandy sits herself down close to the fire and breathes in deep, drowning in the heady mixture of past and present, spiced broth and monk’s robes, Monica’s kindness and Tripitaka’s warmth, the life she lost and the one she’s only just starting to live.

Pigsy sits on the opposite side of the fire, distant but not quite as much as he has been; Sandy does not flinch when he meets her eye across the dancing flames. He rescues the spoon from Tripitaka, and returns to his labour and his humming as if he never left. Doesn’t speak, doesn’t invite Sandy to watch and learn or to try and join in, just continues his task and lets her decide for herself how much or how little she wants to try.

She watches. Breathes. Relishes the onslaught of sensations. But she doesn’t try. Not yet. Still too much to work through, her mind running away with itself; it may be whole again, whatever that means for someone with madness as her middle name, but she still has too much to process before she can think of taking on new lessons. Enough, for now, to watch and breathe and bask in the living memory.

Tomorrow she might try, or she might not. With the rest of her life stretched out in front of her, the quest and the horizon and the future, she has all the time in the world.

For tonight, she just sits. Feels the world shifting all around her, the cool evening air and the taste of memory, of food and family and a place she never got to call home.

Eyes open, she watches the colours bleed across the jagged mountains, the fiery orange fading into reds and purples, into a promise and a warning, the darkness to come and the stars to keep it at bay. And she looks around at her friends, at Monkey brooding over his staff, his face bathed in red light and blue shadows, at Pigsy hunched over the cooking pot, his eyes touched by indigo. At Tripitaka, sitting quietly by her side, capturing all of those colours and more, endless and glorious and—

“Beautiful.”

Sandy smiles. The voice might not be hers, but the word certainly is.

“Yes,” she says, awash in so much feeling. “You are.”

Tripitaka chuckles, swatting at her shoulder. “ _You_ ,” she says, and it could mean any one of a dozen different things but it doesn’t. “You’ve got a hundred worlds in your eyes.”

She means it as a compliment, Sandy knows. And yet...

“I have a hundred worlds inside my head,” she says softly. “And so few of them are pleasant. I think...” She looks back to the horizon, watches the colours spill and bleed, draws a strange kind of comfort from the chaos, the natural world and all its shimmering shades of madness. “I think they clash with each other. It may not be very pretty.”

Tripitaka takes her face in her hands, looks deep into her eyes. Sandy wonders what she sees in there, which of those hundreds of worlds — her own, or the reflection of the one around them — make her own eyes burn so bright.

“I don’t care,” she breathes. “I want to see them all.”

What can Sandy say to that? What can she say to someone who has already seen so much, who has seen the very worst of everything inside her, the worst things she’s endured and the worst things she’s done? What can she say to the one person who truly understands what it is she’s saying, who knows exactly what she means when she says ‘all’, who knows and understands and says it anyway?

She closes her eyes. Shields all of her hundreds of worlds from the fading shadows of sunset, from the dancing flames in Tripitaka’s eyes. Leans in with her breath held, and lets Tripitaka catch them instead in the lines on her skin.

“All of them, then,” she breathes. “All of me. Yours.”

And she lets the dying light wash over her face, lets the scent of broth fill her senses with the only warmth she ever knew, lets herself drown in Tripitaka’s touches, her kisses, her love.

And when she opens her eyes again, a moment and a hundred little lifetimes later, she sees it all. The broken pieces of her past, slowly mending themselves inside her, the good and the bad and the very worst. The shadows of the present, spreading and spreading, in front and behind and all around her, catching the music of Pigsy’s voice as he hums, of Monkey’s body as he moves, of Tripitaka’s breath against her skin.

And the blending, bleeding, beautiful colours of her future—

No.

 _Their_ future.

All of them.

It is so vast, so much, so overwhelming. But there is room inside her now, space that didn’t exist before, and she thinks, for maybe the first time in her ruined life, there might be enough to hold it. To endure and to survive, to find a place for herself, a little corner of madness in this world of too much sense, to live and to learn and maybe—

 _Maybe_ —

With a little help and a little patience and a lot of love—

To thrive.

***


End file.
